Maintaining the health of your digital workplace is an ongoing task, and digital tools, like any tool, can suffer from neglect. Establishing digital workplace governance—a set of practices for routinely monitoring and improving the digital workplace—is a crucial step in maintaining the health of your digital ecosystem.
Why Governance Matters
With the right governance approach, you can preserve the integrity and usefulness of the tools you have carefully selected, designed, and deployed as part of your digital transformation strategy. The purpose of digital transformation governance is to:
-
Preserve the ongoing integrity and relevance of your technology.
-
Establish and maintain clear system ownership.
-
Support the continuous improvement of your systems in accordance with user needs, organizational priorities, and available budgets.
The Benefits of Governance
The benefits of digital workplace governance are numerous. It provides a way to involve key stakeholders from across the organization in strategic decision-making and continuous improvement of the organization's technology. It also supports the implementation of policies and processes around technology selection and offers a streamlined approach for managing change around system updates or changes.
Tackling Governance Challenges
One of the biggest challenges in digital workplace governance is developing a set of approaches that are well-matched to your technology landscape and available resources. Doing so will help you develop a clear strategy for tackling this important, ongoing work and identify the people who will support it.
Governance Roles and Responsibilities
Governance roles and responsibilities are essential considerations. Generally, you will have one group bearing primary responsibility for system governance, the Digital Transformation Steering Committee. Depending on the size of your organization, you may have one or two additional groups, including a Champions Group and an IT Support group.
The Steering Committee: Your Governance Backbone
The Digital Transformation Steering Committee should include leaders representing all key business functions that will have a stake in or be significantly affected by the outcomes of the digital transformation project. This group will support the widespread adoption of upcoming changes and play a key role in planning, budgeting, and prioritizing digital transformation activities now and into the future.
Champions: The Unsung Heroes
Champions are critical to the success of any change effort and do not require a great deal of structure to be effective. They are typically staff members from across the organization who are invested in the success of the digital transformation effort and will promote and generate interest and excitement about the effort in their respective teams and peer groups.
IT Support: The Backbone of Your Digital Workplace
The IT Support Group consists of people on the IT team providing end-user support to system users. Having representatives from IT operations and support is key to ensuring that the system is well-supported and that responsibilities for support and maintenance of key systems are clearly assigned15.
The Ultimate Goal: Integrity and Relevance
The primary goal of digital workplace governance is to maintain the integrity and relevance of digital workplace systems in light of the organization’s evolving priorities and work styles. It is recommended that the organization take a lightweight, shared approach to system governance that is primarily focused on strategic decision-making, risk management, and continuous improvement.
The AI Era: Why Governance is More Crucial Than Ever
In today's world, where AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot are becoming ubiquitous, digital workplace governance is more important than ever. These AI tools can significantly enhance productivity and efficiency, but they also introduce new complexities and risks. Effective governance ensures that these tools are used responsibly and that their benefits are maximized while minimizing potential downsides.