Connecting decision making with performance
 

GD replaces ad-hoc reactive processes and systematises pro-active governance in organisations, enabling ad-hoc decisions to be supported by a systematic process.
It harnesses enterprise intelligence from inside and outside the organisation and enables the distribution of risk management responsibilities across all parts of the organisation to facilitate and strengthen business transformation and programme governance.

It engages the full set of stakeholders’ in particular strategic issues, providing transparency in decision making, delivering specific analytics that prioritises and evaluates decisions, and provides documentation that enables ongoing risk analysis, performance and risk management throughout the organisation.
 

Benefits include: a better-informed decision processes; better communication between organisational leaders and other stakeholders; and a more-empowered organisation which can work toward creating holistic vision and practical solutions for the organisation.

"A cloud based, software as a service, proactive governance platform helps you create, analysis, evaluate and collaborate on decisions and associated risk analysis – enabling teams to work more effectively across boundaries, both inside and outside the enterprise".

GD helps organisations and individuals to model, evaluate, implement and subsequently monitor complex strategic decision options and compliance requirements. It provides an environment in which stakeholders in a decision can collaborate in the modelling of the risks, collection of stakeholder perceptions, determination of consensus and instantaneous analysis of alternatives: “Transforming risky, complex decisions into rational, cooperative outcomes”.

Download a summary overview of Governance Director

GD enables good governance, by letting you get on with minimised risk:

You know which risk factors have the biggest effect on your objectives

You know who to involve – no need to rethink it for each probem

You’ve agreed who to involve – no boundary disputes and no derailment at the last minute

You’ve agreed the process – no politicking and arguing

You’ve agreed how you’ll track outcomes

GD helps you to make effective and efficient decisions, and to monitor and refine outcomes; in the process enabling you to:

Focus energy on the decision, not the process

Simplify and visualise complexity

Give clarity about roles and remits

Ensure visibility & accountability of outcomes

Unlike any other software application, GD helps analyse complex risk problems; rationally, collaboratively and simply:

How should an important decision be made when conflicting strategic goals and stakeholders must be considered?

How do you select which initiatives to pursue when several departments are competing for budget, resource, and time?

How do you prioritise customer needs when all of them seem equally important?

Is there a better way to select a supplier not based on price, but so that the alliance will help you develop future business advantages?

How can stakeholders be assured that a decision and/or compliance evaluation has been assessed in a sound, rational, and fair process ...

See a quick animated explanation here

About Us

GD was conceived in April 2008 and formally established in May 2010. We’re physically based in London, but being an online system, the world is our home…

GD is a product and brand of Op2I Ltd. See more information about Op2i

There are two sides to the decision making process: those who contribute to the decision making process (specifically those who input), and whose who make the decision (specifically those who have decision rights).

GD provides the framework that identifies all of the complexities of decision making: which decisions need to be made; who will have input and/or decision rights for each decision; who will be held accountable for each decision and how each decision will be structured, aligned and communicated.

At its core, GD ensures managers use organisational assets in the way executive management want them to be used. Using GD as your risk management system means you are building feedback loops into your processes and systems, so you can learn about what is and isn’t working and hence refine the way you operate in order to avoid problems before they occur.

Individuals can register and use GD for free - we call this GD Lite. No long forms, no payment details, 10 seconds and you're in.

You have access to key GD features, helping you in better decision making. You can create your own decision support models, upload any best practice decision templates that you create to GD Knowledge Exchange and if approved, start earning money! 

You have access to the library of decision templates that you can import into your space and start utilising.

Why not register now!

Download a summary overview of Governance Director

What is governance?

The concept of "governance" is not new. It is as old as human civilization. Simply put "governance" means: the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented).

Since governance is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented, an analysis must focuses on the formal and informal actors involved in decision-making and implementing the decisions made and the formal and informal structures that have been set in place to arrive at and implement the decision.

What is good governance?

Recently the terms "governance" and "good governance" are being increasingly used in literature. Bad governance is being increasingly regarded as one of the root causes of all evil within our societies.

Good governance needs:

Participation - Participation by all stakeholders is a key cornerstone of good governance.

Decision process - Good governance requires adequate, robust but no overly bureaucratic decision processes

Transparency - Decisions taken and their enforcement must be done in a manner that follows decision making and implementation rules. It also means that information must freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by such decisions and their enforcement – I.e. decision collaboration

Responsiveness – The process must serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.

Consensus orientation - There are several actors and as many view points in a given society or organisation. Good governance requires mediation of the different interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interest of the whole community and how this can be achieved.

Equity and inclusiveness – The well being of organisations and society depends on ensuring that all its members feel that they have a stake in it and do not feel excluded from the decision process

Effectiveness and efficiency - Good governance means that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of stakeholders, while making the best use of resources at their disposal.

Accountability - Accountability is a key requirement of good governance. Who is accountable to whom varies depending on whether decisions or actions taken are internal or external to an organisation. 

Risk management - Risk management and monitoring is a crucial element within good governance. Identifying, assessing, mitigating, contolling and monitoring risks is the only way of ensuring strategic decisions are implemented and deliver the expected outcome, within resource constraints.

 << Download an overview of sourcing decisions risk governance here >>

<< See a quick animated explanation here >>

We offer organisations what we've called the “strategy surgery day”, where we utilise our software platform to help develop and or test complex strategic issues you may be facing.

A one day intensive strategy surgery day, with your key stakeholders, a complex strategic problem you may be facing, Governance Director, and our expert consultants to facilitate the day. By the end of the day, you will have:

- Re-assessed and or tested your strategy

- Understood if there is consensus, or a lack of consensus between the stakeholders in identifying the various strategic choices

- A first past view of the decision model for choosing between the various options

- A first pass assessment of the feasibility of the various strategic options

- A first pass assessment of the risks associated with the decision

- A 30+ page report at the end of the day

Call us or drop us a line for further details or arrange a strategy surgery day!

GD works with its partners to help push better risk governance to various communities. We work with our partners to create packages suitable to the market and their members and proactively work with them to create best practice risk analysis templates that are relevant for their audience.

We are always keen to talk with prospective partners and explain how we can help you engage with your community, provide additional value to your offering and help instil best practice risk governance within your community.

If you are an existing GD Partner, please contact your GD relationship manager in the first instance. If you need technical support, please using the support and feedback function with GD to request urgent assisance. If you wish to talk to GD management, please either call the office or email us.

GD offers organisations full control over the user that are participating within a decision project.  Access rights to the system are controlled through the user license type.

GD Strategic Governance is offered on a monthly subscription basis with prepackaged solutions for small, corporate and public sector organisations that have user licenses and public access functionality pre-configured for the organisation. However this does not stop the organisation changing the number of type of user licenses as its business evolves.

GD Strategy Decisions is offered on a project by project basis and comes pre-packaged with relevant risk analysis template and a set of user subscription licenses and is active for a predefined period. During this period users can utilise GD fully and create additional projects, add additional users etc. GD Solution enables the project team to use and modify the supplied template for risk analysis for projects within an organisation, utilising the full functionality of GD, including: consensus building, collaboration, documentation, reporting and access to the risk model and checklist library. We also offer what we call the GD Strategy Surgery day where our facilitators with the aid of GD work with your key stakeholders to analysis a complex decision to arrive at a first view of the decision, the risks and the degree of consensus very quickly.

GD Risk and Compliance can be offered as a be-spoke basis.

GD Engagement can be offered as a be-spoke basis.

Want to hear and learn more about GD, Decision Making, Decision Governance, Consensus Building, and Mathematical Rationality….then please view our webinar. Approx 30 minutes and you walk away with the answers to your questions. We’ll also give you access to white papers and more on decision management as a thank you for your time!

Contact us today!

Portals  |  Trade Associations  |  Chambers of Commerce  |  Compliance Officers |  Consultants  |  Magazines

Portals – Do you run a business focused website or portal that focuses on a specific niche? Does your community face challenging or complex decision problems – then why don’t you become a GD Partner? You can seamlessly integrate GD into your website and offer you own branded GD services to your community - you could charge a transaction fee to your community for access to decision support tools or integrate with your marketing affiliate programme – either way: you improve your site interactivity, engage with your audience and earn revenues – with no risk! Contact Now!

Trade associations – Most trade associations are membership bodies that exist to promote best practice within a particular industry sector or functional area. Why not add an additional benefit for your members by partnering with GD to develop best practice decision templates for your industry or function and make these available to the global GD community? You get the opportunity to share revenues and by being a GD Partner, your members can get discounted access to GD!

Chambers of commerce – Chambers of Commerce usually have a diverse mix of members, a few large organisations and many smaller businesses, all aspiring to grow. Most join the chambers for two reasons: 1. Network with fellow peers and 2. Support in building better stronger businesses. Why not offer your members the ultimate support - access to GD and the Knowledge Exchange,  which will provide them access to decision templates, to decision experts and more – a lot cheaper than hiring consultants!

Your members can also promote themselves as decision experts, marketing their services to the GD global community.

Being a GD Partner, your members get discounted access to GD, and we work with you to create decision templates that are relevant to your members – simple – increase membership benefits, promote best practice, help reduce costs, improve efficiency and effectiveness – with no investment!

Compliance officers - Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK are spending billions on compliance: £2bn a year on health and safety compliance; £1.8bn a year on complying with tax law, £780m a year on environmental and waste regulations, and £370m on equality and diversity rules.

In total, UK SMEs spend £9.3bn a year on red tape, equivalent to £2,100 per year per company!!

The stress or worry caused by inadvertent failure to comply with regulations and the administrative burden of compliance regulations is putting huge pressures on SME staff – resources taken away from what would have been productive work!

If you have the task of ensuring compliance within government agencies, why don’t you consider introducing compliance self assessment - an online decision system that helps SMEs ensure that they are complying with relevant laws and regulations, quickly, efficiently and without having to seek the services of expensive lawyers or solicitors…By creating the compliance decision templates and centralising compliance, you can monitor progress, identify areas where work is required to meet compliance obligations within your member base, as well significantly reducing the cost of compliance for your members!!

Consultants – Do you advise organisations on what are complex and strategic issues? Do you need to ensure you get the buy-in of the key client stakeholders? Do you need to reduce the overall costs of your consulting projects, without losing consulting margins? Then you should be using GD as part of your consultancy work. It will help achieve all the above! Plus, you could upload decision templates into the GD Knowledge Exchange and promote your services to a broader buyer community!

Magazines – Do you run a magazine and have an online presence? Finding it hard to keep you site interactive? Need to create new content that creates a buzz? Then why not embed GD within you website and start using it to engage with your community. It provides what is the next generation of survey techniques, provides instantaneous feedback to survey participants as well as tools to help analysis community results easily and quickly – all information that can be used  as content for your next issue!

The challenge to every organisation is to make sure that the right decisions are made, in the right way, including the right people.

These are the elements of governance. Without them, your company may suffer from sub-par performance, incurring unnecessary expenses and taking risks may prove to be unacceptable.

Governance Director fully recognizes the challenge to your enterprise. Our GD product empowers organisations with a nimble governance, compliance and risk-management solution to deliver solid decision trust, control and oversight.

Our simple, cost-effective solution will help your company build consensus, co-operation and commitment across the enterprise to deliver transformational business performance

GD Governance Director’s (GD) Software as a Service (SaaS) platform provides cost effective access to strategic decision, risk analysis and compliance wisdom and the associated analytics (templates and expert) through a crowd sourced knowledge exchange.

It overlays your existing processes, systems and tools, helping simplify, test and validate strategic decisions.

Our online SaaS platform, crowd sources, aggregates, and disseminates wisdom to the mass market, in the form of structured decision, risk and compliance templates. Users utilise these within our platform to help them prioritise, rationalise, simplify, visualise and govern complex and impactful decision choices, to make incisive and knowledgeable judgements in a collaborative manner.

The Knowledge Exchange provides a global repository of risk and compliance templates and provides access to risk experts, wherever they may be globally.

Download a summary overview of Governance Director

See a quick animated explanation here

How Governance Director helps Business Leaders

Business Leaders' decision challenges are typically complex deliberative problems that involve clarifying the problem, recognising a range of options and sub- options, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of those options, and weighing up them up to reach optimal outcomes for the business as a whole.

The core skill is disentangling and evaluating a complex set of issues and arguments. Visual analytics can be immensely useful in this context. When confronted with complexity, the human mind performs better with visualisations. The human mind can cope more easily when the options, pros and cons, arguments and detailed evidence are laid out in a visually attractive form. The process of laying out the problem in this form can help introduce clarity and rigour. The overall result is better understanding of the problem, better evaluation of the options, and, on average, better choices being made.

Governance Director combines the benefits of, what to-date, have been four separate types of decisions making processes, into a homogeneous decision governance system using visual analytics to help simplify, clarify and introduce rigour in the decision process.

Governance Director uses the Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) framework in deciphering complex decision problems. MECE is a principle which is used to organise information which is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Information is grouped into categories so that each category is separate and distinct without any overlap (mutually exclusive), and all of the categories taken together deal with all possible options without leaving any gaps (collectively exhaustive).

Governance Director uses a MECE Hierarchical tree structure as a means of simplifying complex decisions and a way of graphically organising information into categories, integrating the benefits from the various traditional decision making process types:

 

Intuitive Decisions – tend to be made rapidly and made by individuals deciding alone:

• Little or no conscious reflection
• Little or no following of decision process rules
• Usually only one option is considered

Problem: Biased, ad-hoc, sub-optimal outcomes

Technical Decisions – tend to follow a well-defined technical procedure, and utilise spreadsheets or computer programs in the decision making:

• Use multi-attribute utility theory
• Use formal decision analysis to select a strategy
• Usually automated decisions

Problem: Only technical experts involved in decision process, reliance on expert opinion and outcomes may be technical optimal, but business sub-optimal

Deliberative Decisions - are made by “weighing up” the arguments and evidence:

• Involves conscious articulation and evaluation of various options and considerations for each option
• May be made individually, or by a group
• Often involves discussion and debate
• To-date not systematised, as the relevant considerations are usually “informal” or “qualitative”
• Is not governed by strict rules or procedures, though it is subject to various norms and conventions

Problem: typically done in workshop setting, with arguments, little documentation, and where those with the largest voice tend to win – again sub-optimal, biased and risky outcomes

Bureaucratic Decisions - use a “bureaucratic” procedure:

• Are important, high stakes and risky decisions
• Are “standard” sorts of decisions for the organisation; hence they are made following a codified process
• Involve lots of people playing their assigned roles
• Are based on lots of information, extensively analysed
• Have detailed documentation

Problem: lengthy, loses innovative thinking, emphasis placed on evidence, whilst people’s wisdom ignored – leads to bland sub-optimal decision outcomes

GD enables your businesses to optimise its decision choices, reduce the risks of selecting poor strategic options and enables you to get your staff fully behind you in decision implementation.

GD offers specific best practice complex strategic decision management models that are made available by industry experts at a pre-configured fixed fee subscription.

Use GD’s full functionality and decision support during the subscription period to prioritise, analyse, gain consensus, consult with the public, and document your decisions.

Every organisation, large and small, is exposed to risk in everything they do, at every level of the organisation, every day! Yet the vast majority of people in organisations act as if they are somehow immune to risk, or that risk is something that belongs to someone else (a client, a supplier, an investor, a bank, members of the public or the directors).
 

Recent history in financial and energy markets illustrates the point. Organisations, large and small repeatedly fail to spot the consequences of risk, They fail at all points of the compass, they: don’t identify risk; fail to take risk seriously; don’t attempt to view risk from other people's perspective; delegate risk to others as if to say if I delegate it, it doesn't exist; fail to institutionalise risk assessment to properly understand the nature of risk and who is impacted by their business decisions.

Too few organisations seek to systematically understand the risks they are, or will be exposed to; especially when dealing with external stakeholders. How many organisations actually bother to understand whether other organisations they partner with and delegate risk to, actually understand the risks they are assuming? Strategic business relationships, such as outsourcing, alliances and JVs can create new value because of the expertise and opportunity another organisation brings. Strategic relationships between key suppliers and their customers can bring benefits such as efficiency savings, improved customer satisfaction and innovation. The benefits can be significant. Yet over 50% of outsourcing deals fail to deliver on expectations. Poor collaboration, poor mutual risk management and a weak relationship, too often results in significant loss of the value of the original business case.

Organisations take for granted certain risks - which can focus resources on lower priority risks and ignore more critical or impacting risks.

* Certain risks exist naturally as a result of outsourcing - many organisations assume sourcing to be the same as procurement and too little attention is paid to the understanding of the wider risks;

* Risk is everywhere – but very few organisations attempt to establish a coherent view of risk;

* Risk is personal – consequences of risk are visited on all stakeholders, yet most organisations task a handful of personnel to make sourcing decisions;

* Risk cannot be delegated – regardless of whom risk is delegated to, and who may assume it, the originator is still responsible; senior management typically do not have an organisation-wide deep understanding of all dimensions of risks, and as such, cannot manage risk on their own;

* Risk is probabilistic – there are always a set of circumstances that can bring about the outcome least desired – yet very few organisations attempt to mitigate for these;

* Risk has both positive and negative outcomes – too many organisations focus on the negative aspects of risks. An understanding of the positive aspects of risks can bring about substantial additional value.

Governance Director makes available, best practice risk analysis templates for sourcing, which can be used within the platform to understand, evaluate and manage risk across the organisation, without the need for additional infrastructure investment or overly bureaucratic processes.

Clearly, not all risk considerations are of equal importance; some will be more impacting than others. Applying the 80/20 pareto rule can help, however, without knowing precisely which 20% are more important than others, especially given that the eco-system, the culture, the existing infrastructure, the processes, the project management approach, the organisational history, differs from one organisation to another, it is extremely important to consider the entirety of risk considerations, before narrowing down to those that may be deemed to be more significantly important.

GD can help organisations identify, assess and manage risk and compliance requirements, easily and cost effectively, without the need for costly GRC platforms.

Decision making at the strategic level hinges on the ability of decision making teams to forge consensus for action. No team can succeed unless it is strong enough to sustain decisions through bureaucratic politics, interest group resistance and implementation. Consensus acts as the “power plant” to sustain strategy decisions through to implementation.
 

Leaders need to engage in a delicate balancing act with regard to nurturing confidence, dissent, and commitment within their organisations.
Fostering constructive dissent is important. Insufficient debate among team members can diminish the extent to which plans and proposals undergo critical evaluation. Flawed ideas remain unchallenged, and creative alternatives are not generated.

On the other hand, when leaders arrive at a final decision, they need everyone to accept the outcome and support its implementation. They cannot allow continued dissension to disrupt the effort to turn that decision into action. Leaders must balance the need for “diversity in counsel, unity in command”.

To accomplish this, leaders must ensure that each participant has a fair and equal opportunity to voice their opinions during the decision process, and they must demonstrate that they have considered those views carefully and genuinely. Moreover, they must clearly explain the rationale for their final decision, including why they chose to accept some input and advice while rejecting other suggestions. By doing so, leaders can encourage divergent thinking while building decision acceptance.

A strategic team's goal is to make decisions that best reflect the thinking of its members, thus ‘forging’ consensus. One can easily confuse what consensus is and isn't:
 

• Consensus is both process and outcome. Consensus is a process in which everyone has their say. Divergent views are fully addressed and resolved by the group. A satisfactory level of convergent individual opinion emerges in the search for general agreement;
 

• Consensus is agreement, but not necessarily complete agreement. It is an outcome which is “close enough” to be acceptable. All or most team members can support it, and few or no members totally oppose it. Usually, when a team achieves general agreement, no one is completely satisfied, but everyone accepts or “lives with” the group's prevailing view;
 

• Consensus is not authoritarian, perfect or conformist;
 

• Consensus is not the team leader imposing decisions and team members complying. Hierarchical decisions do not reflect the thinking of the group. Hierarchical decisions usually do not implement the alternative that all members agree is best and that everyone can support;
 

• Consensus is not a perfect team agreement representing first priorities of all team members. Everyone will not be totally happy with the consensus;
 

• Consensus is not a unanimous decision. This essentially gives each team member veto power;
 

• Consensus is not majority vote. This is faulty consensus, since it only reflects what the majority is happy with. The minority is forced to comply with a decision it doesn't want, which is not what consensus is all about;
 

• Consensus is not “groupthink”, the desire of cohesive teams to conform and make close-minded decisions, disregarding critical examination, divergent opinions, or debate;
 

• Consensus is not a bland, watered-down proposals having no substance, and entailing no risks.
 

GD supports the Public sector and NGOs make robust decisions by managing all available incomplete, uncertain, evolving, and conflicting information.

The system becomes your next generation intelligent risk analysis system – capturing qualitative and quantitative information.

This information goes into making robust, rational, consensual and reduced risk decisions.  The system also records the logic trail for decision outcomes and provides the increasingly important need for transparency and accountability in the public sector. GD also automatically generates risk reports, saving time, effort and money!

GD also enables subscribers to invite the public into the decision making process – giving the public a real voice in local decision making, and providing the public sector entities robust justification for local decision choices.

Why use GD?

Need for more local democracy

Local authorities accountable to the public and central government

Focus on documented decisions becoming more and more crucial

Consensus building essential to effective working

Many partnerships with other organisations that need to be involved in decision making

Public increasingly demanding to be heard and part of the decision making process more explicitly  

Charities and clubs face costly compliance and reporting obligations, whilst at the same time needing to attract sceptical and demanding donors.

Increasing pressures on charities and clubs:

Required to report to charity commission on good governance

Board directors usually trustees with limited time to scrutinise executive – need for more decision governance and documented decisions

Donors increasingly becoming more critical about charity decisions about fund distribution etc

GD enables you to provide the transparency that will gain the confidence of regulators, members and the public, whilst driving greater efficiency and effectiveness into the decision making process.

More responsibility and decision freedom is being placed in the hands of governing bodies, but with freedom comes responsibility, enforced by self assessment, regulation, and inspection. Education institutions can use GD to engage stakeholders, enhancing transparency through properly documented rational decisions and a formal assessment of risk.

GD applications:

Many decision makers have a tendency to seek more information than required to make a good decision.

When too much information is sought and obtained, one or more of several problems can arise:

A delay in the decision occurs because of the time required to obtain and process the extra information. This delay can impair the effectiveness of the decision or solution

Information overload can occur. In this state, so much information is available that decision-making ability actually declines because the information in its entirety can no longer be managed or assessed appropriately. A major problem caused by information overload is forgetfulness. When too much information is taken into memory, especially in a short period of time, some of the information (often that received early on) will be pushed out

Selective use of the information can result. That is, the decision maker will choose from among all the information available only those facts which support a preconceived solution or position

Mental fatigue can result slowing and reducing the quality of decisions further.

The quantity of information that can be processed by the human mind is limited. GD enables users to make robust decisions without the need for excess information, while effectively managing the use of information that is available to make the best decision possible.

Making appropriate and transparent decisions by analysing complex information, taking into consideration different points of view; Demonstrating the ability to make tough and/or sensitive decisions; Having flexibility to both adopt a course of action and change it when required by the situation are the new competitive advantage strategies for today’s economy.

In governments, businesses and other organisations transparency is increasingly seen as a vital managerial technique. Numerous management books nowadays propagate the need for transparent organizational structures; transparency is supposed to deliver better organizational performance and services to customers, citizens and other stakeholders.

Voluntary and Community Organisations (VCOs) rely on public support, both directly in the form of donations of time and money, and indirectly, in terms of public goodwill towards the sector as a whole. And whereas in the past it may have been enough simply to assert that your cause is worthy, today people are more ready to question and challenge such assertions: the halo effect does not allow sufficient light to pass through. VCOs need to open up their decision-making and conduct to public scrutiny, to justify and explain their role in such a way that it can be easily perceived or understood.

GD uses the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP is designed to help decision makers structure a problem as a hierarchy of criteria and alternatives. This structuring provides them with a means to make trade-offs among the criteria and prioritise alternatives.

Decision makers are required to make pair-wise comparisons of criteria in each level of the hierarchy and provide a judgment on the relative importance of each.

In this manner, it is possible to compute the relative weight of each criterion for each decision maker and for all the decision makers collectively. Using AHP also allows inconsistencies to be highlighted.

The final step in the process is to score the alternatives against the criteria. By applying the relative weightings to the scores for each of the alternatives, winners can be identified from both individual and decision team perspectives.

The use of the AHP process within GD is a powerful aid for decision makers. It helps in articulating selection criteria, arriving at consistent weights for each criterion, and, when necessary, arriving at a final consensus ranking amongst the stakeholders.

It is a proven technique for providing a systematic approach to solving an inherently unstructured problem. The sophisticated and mathematically sound pair-wise comparison process allows for the simultaneous and disciplined assessment of both qualitative and quantitative criteria.

In situations where a committee is charged with making the decision, AHP offers additional unique advantages over the traditional approach. It provides a forum for the generation of discussion and clarification of the selection criteria.

GD can also serve to balance power with the selection group by managing data anonymously, so less-powerful group members have no less a voice than anyone else on the committee.

GD Solutions enables businesses to optimise their decision choices, reduce the risks of poor strategic decision choices and enable you to get your staff fully behind you to assess and manage risks.

Business owners and senior management are entrusted to make difficult, complex judgements which are critical for their organisation’s success. A wrong decision by the CEO can cost a company dearly at best and can put the business in jeopardy at worst.

The economic tsunami which swept away countries and companies around the world in 2008 has exposed the weakness in purely rational thinking prevalent in economics. People exhibit bounded rationality while making decisions. The ability to make rational choices is bounded by insufficient information about the problem and relevant criteria, constraint of time and cost on quality and amount of data and mental constraints to solve the problem.

As a result, people compromise on the best possible solution and go for what is acceptable - people satisfice rather than optimise while making decisions.

Most small businesses use “gut” instinct, expensive consultants or simply muddle through when it comes to complex, strategic decisions. There is a better way. GD provides not only a decision governance system but also access to a library of decision templates for those complex decision problems. 

For professional service firms, their employees are their biggest asset. Yet in many of these firms, most employees are not consulted when it comes to major strategic decisions. The board, or for that matter, senior management have little understanding of employee morale. Many get outside consultants to help in areas, which their employee base could have resolved much more quickly and certaintly for a lot less cost.

Engagement with the employee base, whether in strategic decisions, understand morale and engage in career development (360) programmes, or to utilise the knowledge of the internal crowd, i,.e. your employees to improve organisational performance, can bring about substantial improvement to your bottom line.

The Governance Director Platform, has at its core, stakeholder engagement and consensus analysis, allow organisations to engage with their stakeholders, be they employees, suppliers, customers, or the wider public, as part of a strategic decision or just as a simple survey. The consensus analysis functionality enables users to quickly analyse the degree of consensus and where certain stakeholders may either have biased views.

Management consultants, whether as part of a large organisation, an SME, or just an individual, are engaged by their clients to help them solve complex strategic problems. They are engaged so they can help forge consensus amongst the various organisational stakeholders. They are their to help organisation analyse complex situations where there is uncertainty, multiple options, high risk and sometimes urgency for action.

Most consultants provide these services, but do so by holding endless workshops, building complex excel spreadsheets, which no one understands, but the consultant, and by holding endless discussions with the various stakeholders, with the aim of reaching consensus.

By utilising Governance Director, Consultants can reduce the time and effort required in seeking stakeholder opinion, in reaching consensus, in providing the detailed analytic rigour and in producing reports. The Governance Director platform provides all of these functions as standard.

By using Governance Director, consultants can reduce the effort required to consult with their clients by an average of 25% - this is also good news for your clients, as they no longer need to spend time away from their daily job, sitting in endless workshops.....

Making group decisions gets a whole lot easier when your team agrees upon a decision making process.

GD enables stakeholders within a decision process to voice their opinion on the relative weights of the criteria to be used in making judgments between decision choices. GD graphical shows the differences between the relative weights of the project stakeholders, which can be drilled down further to explore the underlying detail for the root cause for the differences.

This enables the project team to identify the critical differentiating criteria separating the stakeholders, such that these can be discussed in an open manner and consensus reached.

GD’s consensus analysis function provides visual analysis of the areas of agreement and disagreement within the decision group. It also shows the degrees of agreement and disagreement – helping the group more quickly understand and resolve possible differences.

Committees are frequently major components of strategic decision making. Using a consultative style (asking others for their opinions but having one individual responsible for making the final decision) or using team consensus (allowing the team to make the decision) are both viable options. In either case, using a team is the best way to ensure that range and accuracy are included, buy-in is created, and relationships are established prior to the actual decision choice.

GD enables each stakeholder within the decision process (as determined by project manager) to have their inputs weighted, such that some stakeholders may have a higher weighting than others – this can be important when certain departments to a decision have greater knowledge, responsibility or accountability.  

Managers must pay close attention to how they balance competing pressures in their organisations, and how their words and actions shape the perceptions and beliefs of organisation members and wider stakeholders.

Managers need to engage in a delicate balancing act with regard to nurturing confidence, dissent, and commitment within and beyond their organisations to key stakeholders – which may include the public (either as customers or voters).

Fostering constructive dissent is important.  Insufficient debate among team members can diminish the extent to which plans and proposals undergo critical evaluation. Flawed ideas remain unchallenged, and creative alternatives are not generated.

On the other hand, when managers arrive at a final decision, they need everyone to accept the outcome and support its implementation. They cannot allow continued dissension to disrupt the effort to turn that decision into action. Managers must balance the need for "diversity in counsel, unity in command."  To accomplish this, managers must insure that each participant has a fair and equal opportunity to voice their opinions during the decision process, and they must demonstrate that they have considered those views carefully and genuinely. Moreover, they must clearly explain the rationale for their final decision, including why they chose to accept some input and advice while rejecting other suggestions. By doing so, managers can encourage divergent thinking while building decision acceptance.

This is precisely what GD does with public opinion consultation!

The work of managers, scientists, engineers and lawyers is the work that charts the course of society. The work of economic and governmental organisations is largely focused on problem solving and making decisions and it is this work - setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of action, and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions that helps effectively managing risk.

The first three of these activities: fixing agendas, setting goals, finding suitable courses of action and evaluating and choosing amongst alternative actions - that requires urgent attention.

Nothing is more important for the well-being of society than that this work be performed effectively, that we address successfully the many problems requiring attention at the national level (the budget and trade deficits, AIDS, national security, the mitigation of earthquake damage), at the level of business organisations (product improvement, efficiency of production, choice of investments), and at the level of our individual lives (choosing a career or a school, buying a house).

The quality of our decisions and problem solutions are stored in million of human heads – most problems that are encountered by an organisation or individual, have been encountered before, by many others, who will have learned from experience what are the right approaches, criteria, and information needs for reaching the optimal choice.

GD provides a framework for the collection of wisdom held in the minds of such individuals, such that “best practice” risk analysis templates and checklists can be created for the benefit of all.

GD Open Source Risk models build upon the wisdom of crowds’ theory - inviting users to help develop community risk models, templates and checklists for the community. An interactive platform is provided that experts (or indeed non-experts) can contribute to help build a truly inclusive and best practice risk templates. These templates are made available to the GD subscriber community free of charge.

Visual analytics synthesise information and provide users deep insight even when analysis is derived from large quantities of dynamic and disparate data.

Visual analytics is more than visualisation. It can rather be seen as an integral approach combining visualisation, human factors, and data analysis. Visual analytics integrate methodology from information analytics, geospatial analytics, and scientific analytics. Human factors especially (e.g., interaction, cognition, perception, collaboration, presentation, and dissemination) play a key role in the communication between human and computer, as well as in the decision-making process.

GD integrates visual analytics for better decision making.

GD is currently privately funded by Op2i, but we are keen to hear from potential investors. The decision governance market is a high growth market. GD’s innovative business models seek to provide customers cost effective tools to support them in making better decisions. In the process we aim to capture value from the market. If you are an investor and would like to know more about GD, we would be delighted to talk.

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If you would like further details on the company or wish to speak to one our consultants please contact us.

GD press releases

Coming soon…

The GD company culture is characterised by an open, friendly, supportive, fast-paced working environment with flexible working arrangements.

If you are thinking of making a move to a stimulating environment within the decision management, software as a service space, please send an email with a covering letter and your CV via the Contact page.

In short, GD is an online decision governance platform for enterprises and individuals. GD‘s sophisticated secure online web engine helps you create, analysis, evaluate and collaborate on decision problems – enabling teams to work more effectively across boundaries, both inside and outside the enterprise. It is available online, on mobile, on desktop.

GD helps organisations and individuals to model, evaluate, implement and subsequently monitor complex strategic decision options and compliance requirements. It provides an environment in which stakeholders in a decision can collaborate in the modelling of the decision, collection of stakeholder perceptions, determination of consensus and instantaneous analysis of alternatives: “Transforming risky, complex decisions into rational, cooperative outcomes”.

GD will soon be releasing APIs for the GD interface, and encourages developers to link into the GD system. Please register your interest via the contact page and we’ll be in touch soon..

GD works with its partners to help push better decision governance to various communities. We work with our partners to create packages suitable to the market and their members and proactively work with them to create best practice decision templates that are relevant for their audience.

We are always keen to talk with prospective partners and explain how we can help you engage with your community, provide additional value to your offering and help instil best practice decision governance within your community.

Portals  |  Trade Associations  |  Chambers of Commerce  |  Compliance Officers |  Consultants  |  Magazines

We’re in the process of launching an affiliate marketing programme and would love to hear from interested parties who want to get involved promoting the GD value to prospective customers. Watch this space!

PRIVACY POLICY for www.GovernanceDirector.com

At GD we are committed to ensuring and protecting your privacy at any time you are on our website or communicate electronically with our personnel. 

Our Privacy Policy is contained below and provides a detailed explanation as to how we may use your personal information provided to us or any we collect through legal means.

Updates of our Privacy Policy are completed frequently, thus you should peruse this Policy habitually.

1. Information We Collect from You

Data can be collected and processed when our website is in operation by you. The following are approved methods of collection:

1.1 If you register for information or complete a purchase, by filling out a form we can collect the information provided.

1.2 Traffic data, weblogs, location data, and any other communication can be collected.  These details come from your visit to our site and any resource tools you use while on the site.

1.3 Any communication on our website or to personnel allows us to collect information.

2. Use of Cookies

Circumstances may arise when we may need to gather information about your computer to help provide appropriate services or products to you.  The data gathered is solely statistical data, which may be shared with advertisers.

The facts collected about you are statistical only. No identifying information will be shared about our visitors and how they made use of our site.  No personal details will ever be shared.

Cookies are used to collect general online usage by using a cookie file.  If used this cookie file is downloaded without prompting.  It will be placed on your hard drive with information transferred to the hard drive allowing the cookies to be used for data collection.  A cookie is used to improve any services/ products, or overall website characteristic we offer you.

Any computer has the option to decline cookies.  Your web browser options include an “enable” button to decline cookies.  It is imperative that you understand by declining cookies you may be limiting your access to sections of our website.

If our advertisers use cookies it will result from a click on their advertisement, and we do not have control over their cookies if used. 

3. Use of Your Information

Information stored and collected about you allows us to improve our services or products for you.  Added to this parameter, we may use your information for the following purposes:

3.1 Any commitment we make on a contracted basis.

3.2 If information is requested from our website concerning services or products offered, we may use your data.  Products or services which may be of interest to you can also deem a communication from us, if permission has been granted.

3.3 Notification re- changes or improvements may be sent to you in regards to product or service changes that could affect our service to you.

3.4 Existing customers can be contacted on the topic of goods or services related to a previous sale, if we feel you might be interested in these additional topics.

3.5 Added use of your data may include permission for third parties to use your data.  This permission would be granted by you in regards to unrelated products or services that may be in your interests.  We or third parties can only contact you in regards to this information if consent has been provided for information collection.  

3.6 Third party contact or communications from our website, as a new customer, is only made if you have granted us permission.  These communications are only offered for information you consented to and no other unrelated information. 

3.7 Data that you do not want us to use or third parties to use can be withheld, once consent has been given regarding our collection of your data.  We will always provide you with an opportunity to decline communications and our or third party data usage.

3.8 Identifiable data, which could be used to disclose who you are, is never shared.  We only provide statistical related data about our visitors to third parties like advertisers to ensure your privacy.  

4. Storing Your Personal Data

4.1 Outside of the European Economic Area are places for storing and processing data we collect from you.  We may take advantage of these outside areas, allowing a staff to process data collected from you.  These processors may work for our suppliers.  The transfer of this data may include processing and completing your order on our site, such as utilising your payment information or offering support services.  We take all reasonable processes to ensure your data is secure and in agreement with our Privacy Policy as outlined here.

4.2 Secured servers are used by our company to ensure proper data storage.  Information on transactions is kept encrypted for safety measures.

4.3 Transmission of data on the internet can never be ultimately secure.  We do not and cannot guarantee security of information collected electronically or transmitted; however, we take all necessary steps to provide the best security available.  As a result of our inability to guarantee safety, you are submitting information to us at your own risk.  Where needed a password may be necessary to access areas of our site. You are responsible for the safety and confidentiality of the password you generate.  

5. Disclosing Your Information

 5.1 Personal information to third parties may be disclosed:

5.2 This disclosure occurs when we sell all or a section of our business or assets to a third party.

5.2.1 Personal information can be offered to any member of our company, such as subsidiaries, holding companies and their subsidiaries only if deemed appropriate.

5.2.2 Legal requirements may mean a sharing of your information.

5.2.3 Lowering credit risk and fraud protection may result in information disclosure.

6. Third Party Links

Links might be discovered on our site that belongs to third parties.  Any third party website on our site has a privacy policy. You should check their terms.  We do not accept liability or responsibility for their privacy policies, based on our lack of control over these third party links.  

7. Access to Information

The Data Protection Act 1998 was established to govern online electronic communications.  The act gives you access to any data we have about you.  To gain access to this information a small fee of £10 is needed.  This fee allows us to process your request by covering our costs.  Contact information is given below, which should be used to gain details about information we hold on you.  

8. Contacting Us

We welcome and hope you do not hesitate to make any queries, comments or requests you may have regarding this Privacy Policy.   Please contact us at info@GovernanceDirector.com.

GD uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to protect your username and password information using both server authentication and data encryption, ensuring that your data is safe, secure, and available only to registered users in your organisation.

GD provides each user in your organisation with a unique user name and password that must be entered each time a User logs on. Huddle issues a session ‘cookie’ only to record encrypted authentication information for the duration of a specific session. The session ‘cookie’ does not include either the username or password of the user.

Click here for our Terms and Conditions

The GD Knowledge Exchange provides organisations access to a number of pre-configured decision templates which can provide a helpful start to building decision projects. Templates within the Knowledge Exchange are provided by decision experts, supported by case studies and references.

These can be customised by an organisation as they see fit. Organisations can also access, communicate and integrate the decision experts as part of its own decision projects. GD Knowledge Exchange thus provides not only access to relevant knowledge, but experts.

GD will soon be realising functionality which will allow users to turn GD decision projects into documented projects at a touch of a button – you’ll be able to customise reports and document all, or some aspects of the project  - imagine turning organisational decisions into decisions reports that can be sent to regulators and others at a touch of a button…

GD allows users to collaborate in group decisions, share knowledge, debate issues and arrive at group wise decisions.

Users can be based anywhere around the world, collaborate anytime with others.

GD allows you to record your private notes and share them with others as and when you want – you’re in control.

GD changes the way organisations approach their decision-making; enabling "information-based decisions" - reducing the risks involved in decision making

In virtually every industry, success hinges not only on traditional competitive advantages such as a dominant market position, geographical penetration, or even proprietary technology. It also depends on the ability to improve business operations by making rapid, high-quality decisions based on the most timely, relevant and accurate information.

An Economist Intelligence Unit global survey of more than 200 senior executives across a wide range of industries conducted in July and August 2009 found that accurate and timely decision-making ranked on a par with superior executive leadership and innovation as vital ways of creating competitive advantage.

Key to using operating information effectively to drive decision-making, say executives, is to ensure the consistency, integrity and accuracy of the operating data.

To create a culture of effective, intelligent risk reduced decision making, executives should:

Develop a more collaborative business environment. Bottlenecks can be removed by simplifying corporate structures and fostering the flow of information among departments.

Emphasise information governance as a way to ensure the consistency, integrity and accuracy of data.

If resources or personnel are not suffi cient to create a dedicated data governance function, then managers should focus on implementing policies and procedures.

Improve the quality of insights gleaned from the customer service and support function, particularly in a weakened economy when customer loyalty is paramount.

Foster a culture of speedy and efficient decision-making throughout the enterprise. This can be done by encouraging all corporate functions to use accurate and timely data from all parts of the business through the adoption of appropriate tools and processes.

Corporate decision making is complex, time and resource intensive. Typically leaders focus on the "right" solution when a problem arises, rather than stepping back to determine the "right" process to make the decision. GD facilitates an effective collaborative decision making process, building a shared understanding and commitment to the decision.

GD helps reduce risks from poor decisions, improves the implementation of decisions and ensures the buy-in from multiple stakeholders with vested interests. Using GD enables an organisation to implement best practice decision frameworks - ensuring contracts with third parties reflect the initial decision strategy – something very rare in complex strategic decisions.

Much has been written about corporate governance and likewise even more on strategy, yet there has been a missing link between strategy and governance, what we call strategic governance that has hitherto been ignored. Much of the focus on governance has been external facing, yet evidence suggests that having good governance which is internally facing and across the supply chain can dramatically improve enterprise performance.

Strategic governance integrates the elements of good enterprise decision making, risk management and compliance. It requires a redefinition of the role of the board, a governance structure that is dynamic and relevant to changing environments and matrix management structures. It requires tools and techniques that align strategy with performance, the board with operations and stake-holders to the vision. It needs to hold people to account, yet drive creativity. It needs to provide enterprise oversight, but more importantly insight.

Good governance allows organisations to make effective decisions, to make them in an efficient way, and to monitor and refine the outcomes of these decisions so as to improve overall organisational performance.

By separating the decision making process and associated roles and responsibilities from the decision itself, and by agreeing to this process up front, clear governance allows people to focus their energy on understanding the issues and identifying good solutions.

Without this focus, people often spend a lot of time deciding who needs to be consulted and defining a decision making process, detracting attention from the decision itself. At worst, decision making then degenerates into politicking and indecision.

As business leaders, we often neglect to look closely at just how decisions are made in our organisations.  We ponder and even agonise over specific decisions all the time. But it seldom even crosses our minds that we might study - and try to improve - how decisions get made on our watch.

Good and bad things don't "just happen" in or to a business. They happen in large measure because of actions that particular people in the company take. When our company is in trouble and we are looking around for explanations and thus things to fix, it is little wonder that we almost never say, "We'd better do something about our decision making." We therefore continue suffering from the debilitating decisions that continue to result, one after the other. Even worse, we remain clueless about why the company is performing so poorly.

The organisational decision-making process, at its best, involves the full utilisation of all of the enterprise’s people and resources. Organisations that centralise their decision-making practices out of habit or a desire for control, do not fully utilise the talents of their people.

In complex strategic decisions, with multiple stakeholders, Governance Director can help ensure you reach the right result; quicker, easier and without the pain of endless workshops, arguments, spreadsheets, and failed implementations.

GD overlays your existing processes, systems and tools, helping simplify, test and validate your complex strategic options. The system automates: decision and mathematical modelling; workflow and stakeholder consensus management; public consultation and collaboration; compliance and risk management. The system can deliver on a regular basis, complete documentation in the form of instant, graphically presented, board ready, whole of life documentation.

The GD Knowledge Exchange provides organisations access to a number of pre-configured risk analysis templates and checklists which can provide a helpful start to understanding project risks. Templates within the Knowledge Exchange are provided by risk experts, supported by case studies and references.

These can be customised by an organisation as they see fit. Organisations can also access, communicate and integrate the risk experts as part of its own projects. GD Knowledge Exchange thus provides not only access to relevant knowledge, but experts.

GD Open Source Decision and Risk Models builds upon the wisdom of crowds’ theory - inviting users to help develop community risk templates for the community.

It is disconcerting when everyone is doing something unique in a silo. There is no re-use, customisation rages across different departments. Managing everything on a granular micro-managerial level is just not practical in this day and age. What does work? A governance structure!

Governance is about specifying who has the decision rights, who should be accountable for the decision and utilmately reducing risk. A decision should not be made in a vacuum. The first step is to assure proper information or input is given to help the decision maker, by providing clarity to the problem and the advantages and disadvantages of different solutions. GD enables an organisation to re-use / review and reflect on past decisions, including the decision criteria, hierarchy, options and pertinent information that can aid in making quicker, better decisions next time round.