Project governance is a critical element of successful delivery. Stakeholder communication is critical regardless of methodology.

• On Agile projects it is easy to focus on the business stakeholders you are working with and assume they are updating the wider stakeholder community. This may not be the case.
• Include good and bad news in the updates. 
• Be completely transparent about the issues and challenges the project is facing. Stakeholders appreciate transparency and hate surprises. 
• Always include the steps you are taking to resolve the issues in the communication.

Waterfall Programme Boards

Role of the Programme Board

• The programme board consists of senior stakeholders with overall responsibility for delivery of the project.
• The programme board is there to support the project and to ensure the correct governance is being followed.
• If there is an issue that cannot be resolved by the project team, it should be escalated to the programme board.

Agile Project Governance

The governance procedures on Agile projects take a different approach compared to Waterfall projects. 

The main difference is:

• The authority to make decisions is delegated to the Agile teams.

The main benefits of the Agile governance model are:

• It enhances an organisation’s overall Agile processes.
• It increases the efficiency of making decisions when there is a requirement to escalate an issue.
• Collaborative decision-making is encouraged.
• Everyone responsible for delivery is involved in project governance. Planning meetings, standups and retrospectives are all used as part of the governance process.
• Delivery managers, service owners, support team managers, technical architects, security managers, change managers, data architects and chief information officers may also support the delivery teams. It may be appropriate for these roles to be involved in project governance.

The Agile governance model is based on the core principles

as outlined in the Agile Manifesto. This results in teams being supported, but not managed, by the governance process. 

The role of the stakeholders is to support the team.