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The Sign-Off Table

Lesson 1 of 5

Governance structures

9 min

Governance is how a program makes decisions, and how it makes sure the right people make them with the right information. In SAP Activate, governance belongs to the Project Management workstream, which covers planning, scheduling, governance, controlling and monitoring. Good governance is mostly invisible: decisions arrive on time, nobody is surprised at a gate, and escalations are rare because problems are handled at the right level early.

The forums

Executive sponsorOwns the business case; final escalation point; chairs or is represented on the steering committee
Steering committeeDecides scope, budget, gate outcomes and go-live; monthly and at each gate
Program management (PMO)Grace: integrated plan, RAID, reporting, gate preparation; weekly with workstream leads
Design authorityArchitecture and deviations from standard; protects the clean core
Workstreams and Scrum teamsDeliver the work; resolve what they can, escalate what they cannot
Service governance with SAPService requests, maintenance windows and updates under RISE
Contoso's governance structure. Each forum has a charter that says what it decides and what it escalates.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-pmo-203

Every forum needs a short charter: purpose, members, decision rights, inputs, outputs and cadence. Without one, steering committees drift into status meetings and design authorities into technical debates with no decision at the end.

Cadence

  1. DailyTeam stand-upsProgress and impediments in each Scrum team
  2. WeeklyProgram management meetingPlan, RAID, cross-workstream dependencies, test readiness
  3. Bi-weeklyDesign authority and service governanceDeviations and architecture; SAP service topics
  4. MonthlySteering committeeStatus, top risks, decisions requested, upcoming gates
  5. Phase endQuality gateReadiness decision on evidence; recorded in Cloud ALM
Contoso's governance rhythm from daily to phase end.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-pmo-203

Who sits where

ForumChairCore membersTypical output
Steering committeeExecutive sponsor (Contoso CFO)Business heads, CIO, Grace, partner executiveDecisions on scope, budget, gates, go-live
Program managementGraceWorkstream leads, Priya, Luis, partner project managerUpdated plan and RAID; escalations
Design authorityLead solution architectFunctional and technical leads, a process ownerApproved or rejected deviations with rationale
Test and quality boardPriyaTest analysts, product owners, defect managersEntry and exit status; defect triage outcomes
Contoso's main forums. Partners attend, but decisions on scope and acceptance are Contoso's.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-pmo-203

Governance with a partner and SAP

Most SAP programs have at least three parties: the customer, an implementation partner and SAP itself. The temptation is to let the partner run governance because it runs the delivery. Resist it. The partner should run its own delivery governance and report into the customer's forums. The customer owns the business case, scope, acceptance and risk acceptance, and those decisions must sit in Contoso's structures, with minutes Contoso keeps.

Governance changes through the phases

The same forums carry different weight in each phase. In Prepare, the steering committee approves the charter, plan and governance model itself. In Explore, the design authority is busiest, because Fit-to-Standard produces deviations to judge. In Realize, the program management meeting and the test and quality board carry most of the load, chasing dependencies and defects. In Deploy, governance shortens its cycle: Contoso moves to daily cutover calls and a go or no-go meeting where the steering committee decides on evidence presented by Luis and Priya.

  • Prepare: charters approved, decision rights agreed, RAID log opened, gate criteria for Explore set.
  • Explore: design authority reviews deviations; steering approves the baseline scope at the gate.
  • Realize: weekly dependency and defect focus; change requests routed by threshold.
  • Deploy: daily cutover governance; go or no-go decision; hypercare exit criteria agreed.

What would you do?

Contoso's steering committee has become a two-hour slideshow of workstream updates, and decisions keep slipping to "next month". What should Grace change first?

Key points
  • Governance sits in the SAP Activate Project Management workstream: planning, governance, controlling and monitoring.
  • Typical forums: sponsor, steering committee, PMO, design authority, workstreams, and SAP service governance under RISE.
  • Give every forum a charter: purpose, members, decision rights, inputs, outputs, cadence.
  • Partners report into customer governance; scope, acceptance and risk decisions stay with the customer.

Check your understanding · not graded

Lesson check

  1. 1. Which SAP Activate workstream owns governance?

  2. 2. What should a steering committee mainly do?

  3. 3. What belongs in every forum's charter?

  4. 4. Who should own acceptance and risk decisions on Contoso's program?