[Josette]

Governance and reporting are critical in enterprise integration, and effective decision-making must occur at all levels of the organisation. In large-scale programs—particularly those with multiple steering committees—are there any best-practice frameworks for establishing decision-making delegations? Additionally, how can alignment in decision-making be ensured across the program?

[Max-Egon U.]

Dear Josette,
I like the question, because I frequently take part in steering committees or report as a workstream lead to one.
As always, it depends, but a monthly or bi-monthly rythm (which can be interrupted if no decesions are pending) in whcih the responsibles for the workstreams present there achievements, next steps, risk and mitigations works fairly well. If there is a Board above tseveral Steering Committees, it depends on the nature of such body. Do they expect a status update? Do they have the duty to connect the dots of the different SteerCos below? Do they only want to here the issues and excalation points, or do they want to be involved in the decisions and contribute their opinion on the different SteerCos? I regard the board above the SteerCo as a nother SteerCo which has to define its goal just as the ones below (as described in the questions above) to then create the governance for such board – just as one would do for the individual SteerCos.
Hope this helps, what do you think?

[Patricia Joye]

One of the technics applied in one of my programs is to have a weekly stand-up “whiteboard” style of max 20 minutes with the program core steerco members. The idea is not to deep-dive in complex issues but rather to i)highlight any potential blocking points, ii) request support and iii) define the next steps to get to a decison. Program and project steerco’s very often do not offer the dynamism to get into fast decision taking. This way of working fosters a collaborative approach and ensures that any potential blocking items are tackled more efficiently.

[Saeed Zeinali]

Great question. From my experience building NextStars as a global organization, one thing that’s helped is establishing clear “decision rights” documentation upfront specifying which decisions require steering committee approval versus what can be delegated to workstream leads.
We use a simple framework: strategic decisions (budget allocation, market entry, major partnerships) go to the steering level, while tactical execution stays with operational teams. The key is defining clear thresholds and escalation triggers so there’s no ambiguity.
For alignment across multiple committees, we’ve found regular cross-committee sync sessions (even 30 minutes biweekly) prevent siloed decision-making and catch conflicts early. We also maintain a shared decision log visible to all committees so everyone can see what’s been decided and by whom.
Curious if others have found RACI matrices helpful in this context, or if they create more bureaucracy than clarity in fast-moving integrations?

[Charles Pederson]

At our organization, the steering committee is there to obtain support (if needed), to provide answers to questions and provide alignment for the program if the direction changes. We do require that each functional leader has the authority to make decisions on behalf of their function, this helps in the sense that alignment may need to formally take place at the Steering Committee meeting monthly report out. Only one occastion can I recall that a decision could not be made at the Steering Committee meeting, in this case the function was given one week to arrive at a decision.
However, the steering Committees are our company are typically the same people for integrations, and they are accustom to the process and expectations.

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