It is Q4, how is your Board Work Plan going?

Some Boards and Governance Professionals may be going into Board Evaluation and Audit season, trying to recall what the Board committed to do this year.

Q4 is usually an #evaluation, #budgeting interim financial #audit and governance audit season. As well, Q4 is a planning and setting the stage quarter, and for governance professionals, the way to ensure the #Board becomes more effective is by having a work plan in place, and before the current financial year comes to an end.

A Board Work Plan is a yearly calendar of strategic tasks and initiatives that a Board must carry out in order to effectively steer and guide the CEO and Management team. It goes beyond co-ordinating calendars for the quarterly board meeting cycles, and includes what high level priorities should form part of the discussions in those meeting cycles.

It is a reality that a Board shall never have enough time to discuss all that is required of them within a year. This is because on average and without #committee meetings, a Board on average shall spend at least 12 hours a year (4 quarterly meetings of 3 hours each) and at least 20% of that meeting time may be lost in preliminaries and any other business agendas.

If that is the case, how do you make the best use of those 12 or so hours a year set aside for main #boardmeetings ?
1. Review the strategic plan and list out strategic goals for the coming financial year after having a look at the business environment and where the organisation wants to be. These goals can be found by checking the progress the management has made in achieving previous strategic targets and which of these would be the focus for the next year.
2. In line with the strategic goals, list the tasks and initiatives that must be handled by the Board in a certain year. This can be done with the help of the #CEO and #CompanySecretary and any other member of management who has a global view of the business priorities.
3. Prioritise the tasks and initiatives and restrict to those that are strategic and need Board guidance or approval. The Board can then make use of tools such as the Eisenhower decision matrix which will help in reducing the list in order of urgency and importance. Here, those items which are strategically important should be done or scheduled. Those items which are not important but urgent, can be delegated and these usually include operational matters such as compliance and audits.

The benefits in having Board Work Plans, apart from scheduling meetings and building #agendas are numerous. Annual work plans gives a Board a sense of ownership over their time. If done well, the organisation will benefit with the additional focus that a Board applies to assisting management to meet strategic goals and it shall be easy to identify the effectiveness of a Board.

This is your sign to enlist Akira Consult in your 2024 Annual Board Plan review and planning, we promise to make it painless yet useful 🤓