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0:00
Hello. I'm Mike Clayton.
I'm the founder of
Online PM Courses
both the website and
the YouTube channel.
In this talk, I
want to talk about
the principles of good
project governance.
0:16
The first question
we have to answer
is what do we mean
by governance?
It's not always true that if
you go to the roots of a
word, its linguistic origins,
you find a helpful guide to what
the word means today
in the 21st century.
But in the case of governance,
we can go all the way back to
the ancient Greek root of the
word and help ourselves to
understand what it means in
the context of
organisations and projects
today. And the origin of
the word is in kubernḗtēs.
The kubernḗtēs or governor to
give it its modern form was
effectively the captain of an
ancient Greek vessel, a
trireme or some other ship.
The kubernḗtēs literally
mean steersman.
But they did far more
than steer the vessel.
They were in charge.
If we think about that,
we can think about the
role of a captain on
a modern vessel and
find very much what we
have to do to govern our
project because a captain
of a vessel is responsible
for setting the course
and for holding
the course and for
managing everything that
goes on during the journey.
1:35
You'll find a number of
different definitions of
project governance from some of
the big organisations in the
project management space.
For example, the Project
Management Institute
has in their practice guide
for The Governance
of Portfolios,
Programs, and Projects
this definition.
They define governance as
the framework, functions,
and processes that guide
project management activities
in order to create a
unique product,
service, or result to
meet organisational strategic
and operational goals.
For me, I would
place the emphasis
here on "guide project
management activities."
PMI sees governance about
guiding project
management activities.
On the other hand, the Association
for Project Management,
