The governing systems

Organizations operate as a series of systems that are made up of people, the processes they follow and the technology that supports them.

These systems, and their component parts, are some of the assets of the organization.

Governance teams focus on building the systems that provide a healthy culture and the asset management capability. These systems are called the governing systems. They support the business systems (that is, the governed systems). See figure 1.

Figure 1: Systems of an organization

Ideally governance is embedded in the daily work of the organization, rewarding individuals who follow the practices it encourages. When this is the case, individuals engaging with the organization use a blend of the business systems and the governing systems to perform their role(s). They may not even be aware of the difference.

Capabilities of the governing systems

The capabilities of the governing systems are typically focused on managing the organization’s assets.

Figure 2 details the type of capabilities provided by the governing systems shown in green. The business systems are shown in blue.

Figure 2: Capabilities of the governing systems

Underpinning the capabilities of the governing system is a knowledge base about the assets, their relationships and the activity related to their management. This knowledge base is called the asset catalog and it is one of the functions provided by a metadata repository.

Return to Guidance on Governance.

License: CC BY 4.0, Copyright Contributors to the ODPi Egeria project.