The governance structure assumes the people who agreed to it are still there. Often they are not.

Most organizations treat executive alignment as something achieved once. The business case is approved. The sponsor is appointed. The steering committee is formed. The program proceeds. The assumption is that the alignment established at the beginning will hold for the life of the program. For large ERP transformations lasting eighteen months to three years, it is one of the most expensive assumptions a governance structure can make.

The Governance Condition

Executives change. Sponsors move on. Reorganizations occur. Strategic priorities shift at the corporate level. New executives arrive with different backgrounds, different assumptions, and different views on what good looks like.

In one international manufacturing transformation, a senior executive sponsor moved to a larger strategic initiative at month eleven of a twenty-two month program. A replacement was appointed. The replacement had a different technology background and a significantly different view of the integration architecture the program had been built around. Within two months, the replacement had commissioned a review of the integration design. The review consumed three months of senior delivery resource and produced a recommendation that differed from the original design in one significant respect. The additional cost was attributed to a design revision. Its root cause was a governance structure that had not anticipated executive succession as a risk requiring specific design.

Technology preference is a specific and frequently encountered variant of this pattern. An incoming executive arrives from an organization where a different platform was standard. What appear to be technical concerns about the existing design turn out to be expressions of preference. Governance exists to evaluate technology decisions against business requirements. In most programs, that governance mechanism is weakest precisely when new stakeholders are forming their views.

Expired alignment also appears without a personnel change. A program approved during a period of strategic stability can find its governing assumptions challenged by a shift in corporate priorities, an acquisition, or a significant market event. The program continues. Its original assumptions begin to diverge from the organization’s current priorities. This appears as a series of scope discussions, steering committee tensions, and unexplained resistance to decisions that should be straightforward.

The Most Dangerous Condition

The most dangerous governance condition is often not misalignment. It is expired alignment. Governance structures that were adequate at program inception, and that appeared to be functioning, that were simply no longer matched to the executive reality of the program.

Governance Pattern: Expired Alignment

Observed when:

  • The executive sponsor has changed since the program was approved, and the incoming sponsor has not been formally aligned to the decisions their predecessor made
  • A senior stakeholder has arrived with a different technology background and is reopening conversations about technology choices that were previously settled
  • A strategic priority shift has changed the context in which the program is operating, without that shift being formally assessed against the program's assumptions
  • Decisions the governance structure treats as settled are being reopened without a formal change governance process
  • The program's original business case assumptions are no longer consistent with the organization's current strategic direction

Commercial consequence:

Reopened decisions consuming delivery resource at points in the program when delivery capacity is already fully committed. Scope instability driven not by emerging requirements but by the need to re-establish alignment with new governance participants.

If This Feels Familiar
  • A senior stakeholder has changed since the program was approved, and the replacement has been reopening settled decisions.
  • Technology choices formally agreed are being revisited in steering committee or informal conversations.
  • The program's original business case no longer fully reflects the organization's current strategic priorities.
  • What appeared to be stable governance is showing signs of stress that traces back to a leadership change rather than a delivery problem.

Board Questions

1.How would this program respond if its primary sponsor left tomorrow?
2.Has the executive alignment established at program approval been formally re-tested since the program began?
3.Which settled decisions could be reopened by an incoming executive, and what would the cost of reopening them be at this point in the program?
4.Is the program's original business case still consistent with the organization's current strategic direction?
5.If a new executive joined the steering committee today, what would they challenge first?

Governance Intervention

Executive Alignment Review. When executive succession occurs mid-program, the incoming executive requires a structured process for orienting to the decisions their predecessor made and formally accepting or challenging each one.

Governance Continuity Review. A formal examination of which governance conditions, relationships, and assumptions are at risk of disruption if specific executives change role.

Decision Authority Framework. A documented record of which decisions have been made, who made them, and what the change governance process is for revisiting them.

Independent Governance Oversight. A governance layer that persists through executive succession because it is structurally independent of the individuals who come and go within the governance structure.

TRC Solutions provides independent governance for SAP and ERP transformation programs. The Governance Engine is the institutional framework through which TRC carries that accountability.