Digital governance
“Governance is an enabler. It allows organisations to minimise some of the churn and uncertainty in development by clearly establishing accountability and decision-making authority for all matters digital.”
Lisa Welchman, Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design
Good digital governance brings so many benefits. It leads the organisation towards the most strategically-pinned goals. It creates effective, evidence-based decision making. It brings accountability for performance and vision for the future.
Shelter’s digital governance starts with the Digital Leadership Group (DLG), a cross-organisational body that articulates Shelter’s 3-year strategy into digital initiatives, then leads our teams - across the directorates - in planning, delivering and measuring our digital output.
Who’s in the DLG:
The business owners for digital from Income Generation, Services, CPC and Scotland
Representatives from Data and IT
The Head of Digital and Head of Marketing, Digital and Creative
What the DLG does:
Ensures all our digital planning and delivery connects to Shelter’s strategy
Oversees the digital framework, which defines every aspect of Shelter’s digital operations
Reviews our digital operations and performance, reporting and making recommendations to our executive leadership team (ELT)
Ensures our devolved digital teams and their roadmaps are fully aligned - which helps us take advantage of overlapping objectives and commonalities, and avoid competing priorities. Alignment also brings consistency for users, including in how we present our brand
Develops and appraises proposals for Shelter-wide digital initiatives and investment
Raises and manages risks and issues
Ensures that digital plans align with other business plans and major programmes
Oversees development of digital skills and knowledge across the organisation through our devolved model
Keeping the golden thread
A fundamental role of digital governance is making sure the charity’s high-level objectives are reflected in every piece of digital work. The DLG starts the thread with future vision and business planning (part of the digital lifecycle), drawing from many ideas and sources to create new initiatives.
Product and service managers then begin product planning, developing a roadmap through a range of inputs. The roadmap is an essential tool, constantly referred to and updated through the stages of work (discovery, design, development, testing, deployment).
For the content teams that create and self-publish content (rather than relying on product teams), their connection to Shelter’s strategy comes via their business owners.
Related
What goes into being a business owner?
Shelter’s devolved model of delivering digital
How we make sure we understand our audiences
Contact us about the digital framework
Have a question or comment? Found a bug? Or maybe you’d like to contribute to the framework? Use our contact form to get in touch.