Case Study: Learning The Difference Between Good And Bad Governance

Business executives at a European universal bank learned valuable lessons from its experiences implementing both good and bad operational governance during the renewal of its core banking processes and platforms. The bank first attempted to govern change processes from within an IT shared services organization — and failed. With the second attempt, it invested in the development of a business process management (BPM) unit and gave that unit a mandate to govern and manage the renewal process at all levels of the organization. The BPM governance approach worked better than the IT-driven one, as it provided the foundational elements required for such change programs to succeed: 1) a clear process strategy to focus the organization on what it needs to accomplish; 2) a BPM function to be accountable and responsible for driving change; and 3) a self-regulated performance management system to keep all stakeholders focused on business outcomes.