The board at work
Board strategy, risk, performance and evaluation.
A focused three hours on the board at work: testing strategy, setting the risk tone, questioning performance reports and evaluating itself honestly.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours
- Where
- Good Governance
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Board members, executives and governance leads in public and voluntary organisations
Overview
A board earns its place through what it does with strategy, risk and information. This programme looks at the board at work. It sets out the board's four strategic roles and McNulty and Pettigrew's spectrum from ratify to co-create, with Nokia and Netflix as contrasting cases of strategic drift. It moves to risk as a continuing conversation, using the COSO components and the distinction between appetite, tolerance and capacity, with Carillion as a warning. It then examines reporting, lead and lag indicators and the lesson of Tesco, and closes with board evaluation and the cases of Boeing, Patagonia and a housing association turnaround.
Aims
This programme aims to develop boards that act as a critical friend rather than a rubber stamp: testing strategy without writing it, setting and checking the risk tone, asking how a metric was produced and turning scrutiny back on themselves. It is for board members, executives and governance leads across public and voluntary organisations.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Assess a strategic proposal and your board's role in it, using critical friend questions and recognising the warning signs of strategic drift.
- Distinguish risk appetite, tolerance and capacity, and design a balanced board dashboard of lead and lag indicators that gives assurance rather than reassurance.
- Plan a board evaluation that tests composition, dynamics, information and strategic contribution, and turn its findings into named actions with owners.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain the board's four strategic roles and place your own board honestly on the spectrum from ratify to co-create.
- Apply testing tools, the critical friend questions and the standard for a good strategy paper to challenge a strategic proposal without writing it.
- Explain the board's role in setting the risk tone and testing that it holds, as distinct from management's job of managing risk.
- Distinguish risk appetite, tolerance and capacity, and use the COSO components to test whether a risk system is working.
- Explain what integrated reporting combines and assess a board report against the standard of concise, reliable, strategically focused and visible.
- Describe the layers of the board evaluation cycle and explain why an evaluation nobody acts on is worse than none.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours of learning.
- 01Looking ahead, looking outBoard strategy, risk and assuranceBitesize2 modules
- 02Is the board making a difference?Board performance, reporting and evaluationBitesize2 modules
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours, £69
- The whole topicExplore, Governing well, 6 hours, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Also part of: Governing with confidence