Kafka’s Snakes and Ladders: The Laws of Governance Proliferation in Large Organisations
1 min readJul 14, 2021
- It is mandatory that the cost of the governance process must exceed the cost of any proposal seeking governance approval.
- Governance committees are never disbanded. When the members of a governance committee cease to show up for meetings, the committee is promoted to Zombie status.
- Each governance decision requires multiple, serial, iterative reviews by each governance committee.
- The path through the Governance Maze is always undefined and unique. No one knows where their journey starts, where they are in their journey, or if their journey is complete.
- After every ‘final’ governance decision, there is always an additional governance authority required to approve the proposal.
- Governance decisions must be vague. Approval is always contingent on something uncertain that may happen in future.
- Governance Committees must always exceed the scope of their charter.
- Governance committee members are required to have no understanding of the nature, risk, or value of what they govern.
- When a new requirement for governance is identified, a new governance committee must be established, dedicated to that context.
