You have a Steering Committee. It meets every two weeks. The slides are perfect. The room is full. And at the end — nobody has decided anything.
Most Steering Committees are status meetings with a better title.
The agenda is full. The traffic light report is green. The programme manager presents slide after slide. And the CFO nods. The Head of Controlling takes notes. The IT lead explains why the delay was not their fault.
But nobody decides.
That is not governance. That is reporting theatre.
What a real Steering Committee does
It meets to decide — not to update.
The agenda contains open questions — not closed reports.
Someone leaves the room with an action they did not have when they entered.
If your SteerCo cannot answer "What did we decide today?" — you do not have a Steering Committee. You have a calendar entry.
The Root Cause
The problem is rarely the people. It is the design.
Most Steering Committees are designed for reporting. The inputs are status updates. The structure is sequential. The logic is: inform, not decide.
A steering-capable committee is designed differently. The inputs are decision papers — short, binary, with a recommendation. The structure is parallel: who decides what, based on which threshold. The logic is: escalate or close.
The difference is not culture. It is architecture.
One question for your next SteerCo
How many decisions did your last Steering Committee actually make?
If the answer is zero — the architecture is broken. Not the people.
Reply and tell me: what was the last real decision your SteerCo made?
Your steering logic is the problem. Not your data.
Cordula Buss · Plan A2C · Structure First
Helping finance and programme leaders build steering logic that works.