Office 365 Distilled, the podcast that blends Microsoft technology and a good dram, introduced the concept of “Baseline Governance” as a tool to deploy Microsoft 365 applications safely across the business rapidly. Using Agile techniques, Steve and Marijn, in this session, will provide practical advice and tools that you can use in your organization to drive governance iteratively and turn you into the company’s IT rockstar.

Workshop Outline

Let’s Kick off Governance:
Understand the context of governance and the different areas that governance can be applied within. As we think M365 lifecycle, the list of items that need to be managed and controlled, extends from setting up the tenant to managing and driving a Production M365 environment.

Baseline Governance
The concept of Baseline Governance is to identify the benchmark that needs to be achieved to move forward. This benchmark starts a consistent process to roll out M365 services.
The point to remember is that governance constantly changes; when the high-priority items are controlled, a service can start. Baseline Governance identifies and manages the high-risk items from the start and builds in the lower priorities as part of the ongoing improvement process of the service.

Governance Model
We will introduce a model that will drive governance success across your organization. Governance is not IT control but a business opportunity. We will look at a 5-step model for governance and identify how you can implement this in your company.
Define | Review | Adapt | Approve | Publish.
As this is a practical course, you will build your governance plan for your organization identifying the risks and solutions to move you forward on your return to the workplace.

Roles and Responsibility
Anyone can approve a document, but do they have the credibility to ensure it carries the weight required for enablement? Several roles in accepting a new standard or design drive governance. This course section will look at the roles required to ensure a governance process works.
Your governance board will be structured to give your policies and decisions appropriate credibility that will drive them through the organization creating a baseline for change and acceptance.

RASCI
We will look at the RASCI matrix and bring together the roles, governance line items and identify who within your organization is best positioned to implement a governance model that will work. Using the Office 365 Disilled workbooks, you will identify the right person with the right position in your company to take on the right levels of Responsibility, Accountability, Support, Consultation, or Information.

Process
We bring the workshop to a close by building a solid process for achieving Governance that incorporates the learning from the previous sections. Successful governance is not delivered with one meeting per month but needs to be incorporated into your Solutions strategy, management boards and improvement actions already taking place.