Let’s start with a familiar scene.
A company decides it’s time to “get serious” about data governance.
They form a steering committee.
Draft a policy.
Assign some roles.
Schedule recurring meetings.
And then… not much happens.
Sure, documents get written.
Slide decks get built.
People nod in agreement.
But the business keeps operating exactly as it did before.
No new decisions.
No measurable impact.
No change in how data is created, used, or trusted.
This is the first, and arguably most insidious, failure pattern in governance:
Governance by Committee, Not by Design.
The Illusion of Progress
Governance by committee feels productive.
It creates structure. It signals intent. It gives stakeholders a seat at the table.
But without a clear design framework, it’s performative.
It’s governance theater.
You get policies that don’t map to business outcomes.
Roles that exist on paper but not in practice.
And meetings that recycle the same talking points without driving decisions.
The committee becomes a place to discuss governance, not to do governance.
Why This Happens
Most programs start with good intentions but lack a design anchor.
They begin with structure, committees, policies, roles, instead of purpose.
They ask:
“How should we govern our data?”
Instead of:
“What does our business need governance to enable?”
That subtle shift in framing makes all the difference.
What to Do Instead: Start with a Business-First Blueprint
Effective governance doesn’t start with a committee.
It starts with a blueprint, a clear articulation of what governance needs to achieve.
Ask the hard questions up front:
- Are we trying to ensure AI model oversight and transparency?
- Do we need to meet regulatory compliance across jurisdictions?
- Are we aiming for operational efficiency through cleaner master data?
Once the outcomes are defined, governance becomes a design challenge, not a political one.
You build backward from those outcomes:
- What decisions need to be made?
- What data needs to be trusted?
- What roles, processes, and tools support that trust?
This is governance by design: intentional, outcome-driven, and scalable.
The Payoff: From Theater to Transformation
When governance is designed, not just discussed, it becomes a lever for transformation:
- AI models get deployed with confidence.
- Compliance audits become routine, not reactive.
- Business units stop arguing over definitions and start executing with clarity.
And the committee?
It still exists, but now it’s a decision-making body, not a discussion group.
Final Thought: Governance Is Not a Meeting. It’s a Mechanism.
If your governance program spends more time talking about governance than doing it, it’s time to rethink the design.
Start with outcomes.
Build backward.
And let structure follow strategy, not the other way around.
Check in next week for Governance Failure Pattern #2…and what to do about it.