Governing in Flow: Why Steercos Are Fading and Portfolio Walls Must Rise

I. The Post-Agile Crossroads

A decade ago, Agile was the promised land. Enterprises raced to implement stand-ups, backlogs, and squads, symbols of a new era. For a while, it worked. Teams moved faster, silos thinned, and most importantly, leaders spoke the language of agility with conviction.

I’ve seen it first-hand. One organisation I worked with was once a shining example, early adopters in the banking industry who committed deeply to Agile ways of working. With widespread buy-in and real traction across business and tech, they proved what was possible when leadership, teams, and purpose aligned.

But something shifted.

As new waves of leadership entered from non-agile legacy institutions, they reverted to what they knew, what felt “safe” to them. They began applying practices from slower, more hierarchical banks, wrapped in the language of agility but hollow in execution. Their actions spoke clearly: in how they worked, how they showed up, how they interacted, and how they structured their own leadership teams.

Agile was relegated to the teams, while the top played a different game entirely.

One executive put it perfectly: “They’re playing hockey and expecting the teams to play football.” Her words captured the heart of the dysfunction, a fundamental misalignment in thinking, which inevitably led to a breakdown in ways of working. What they missed was this: transformation starts at the top and trickles all the way down to the most junior squad member.

Practices once embedded began to fray. Estimation became optional. Scrum Masters were removed. Coaching, once central, was gradually defunded, until the entire coaching function was dissolved, abruptly and without coherence. What remained were the rituals, stripped of the intent that once gave them power.

Agility became theatre.

We now stand at a critical juncture. The question isn’t how do we do Agile better? It’s how do we evolve beyond it, into something more resilient, integrated, and alive?

II. The Decay of Legacy Agility

When Agile is first introduced, it often arrives as a breath of fresh air—at least to those who understand what it is and what it’s meant to do. It challenges hierarchy, empowers teams, and promises speed with purpose. But like anything, when not maintained, it can quietly lose its life force. The ceremonies remain, but the consciousness behind them fades.

In many organisations, this decay isn’t obvious at first. Work still moves. Boards still update. But underneath, the system is quietly unravelling. Estimation is skipped “for efficiency.” Planning becomes reactive. Backlogs balloon without clear prioritisation. Leadership claims agility while simultaneously demanding predictability and certainty—two forces at odds. Often, they’re the ones dropping last-minute work on teams halfway through a quarter.

Agility doesn’t die overnight. It erodes through neglect, misalignment, and the slow return of old habits dressed in new language.

Most dangerously, it decays when leadership fails to reinforce it. Hiring misaligned leaders—often from entirely different cultural environments, can unravel years of careful progress and millions of dollars of investment. You see it play out in subtle ways: employees from the big red bank versus those from the big yellow bank bring vastly different ways of thinking and working when they land in the orange one.

Without shared guardrails, purpose, and a deep commitment to mindset shifts, even the most well-intentioned transformation begins to falter. As one executive put it, “The pendulum has swung too far the other way and it’s too late to swing it back unless it comes from the very top, referring to the board or global”

It’s at this point that many organisations ask the wrong question: “How do we fix Agile?”

When instead, they should be asking: “What is the enterprise we are trying to become and what operating model will truly support that?”

II. Reframing Operating Models as Living Systems

Organisations are not machines. They are living systems evolving, interconnected, and constantly responding to internal and external pressures. Yet, too many are still managed like engines: calibrated for control, precision and top-down efficiency.

This mechanical mindset sits at the heart of why so many transformations stall. The outer form of agility is adopted - teams, rituals, ceremonies but the inner logic remains unchanged. The system is expected to behave in an agile way while being governed by waterfall-era beliefs. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the ongoing reliance on steering committees.

Steercos were never built for agility. They are the product of a different time, designed for a world where decisions were made at the top, passed down to delivery teams and measured against static plans with business cases. Their function is rooted in control and oversight, not adaptation and emergence.

Yet, they have crept back in.

Imagine this “hypothetical” bank that once had portfolio walls as the primary governance interface, living systems that gave us transparency, allowed risk and delivery conversations to happen in flow, as well as brought enablers and delivery leads into the same room. They worked, until the leadership changed.

As new waves of executives joined, particularly from legacy institutions with more hierarchical DNA, the instinct was to bring back what felt familiar: The Steerco. Formally scheduled, PowerPoint-based, control-heavy governance forums were reintroduced not out of malice but out of fear. Fear of losing grip. Fear of regulatory breaches. Fear of ambiguity.

To be fair, compliance, legal risk and formal approvals do require rigour but that rigour doesn’t have to live in a steerco.

Why We Must Transition Away from Steercos

Because they no longer serve the way modern organisations need to operate. They:

• Fragment decision-making, creating delays

• Encourage theatrical status reporting over transparent dialogue

• Reinforce hierarchical distance between teams and leaders

• Duplicate effort already surfaced at portfolio walls

        •      Create a waste of resources preparing decks and taking minutes

• Undermine the very agility we claim to be pursuing

Steercos are designed for episodic visibility but true transformation requires continuous awareness.

When decisions only happen once a month, based on second-hand data filtered through multiple layers, responsiveness dies. Work becomes disjointed. Strategy and delivery drift apart.

The result? A façade of governance, while the real complexity of the enterprise remains unaddressed.

What Portfolio Walls Offer Instead

When empowered correctly, portfolio walls can replace steercos entirely, not by being “agile meetings” but by becoming the central nervous system of delivery governance.

They:

• Provide real-time visibility of what’s happening

• Surface risks, delivery gaps, early warnings and dependencies with immediacy

• Create shared accountability among those delivering and those enabling

• Allow trade-off decisions to happen with those closest to the impact

• Support regulatory and compliance rigour if the right SMEs are in the room

This only works if the wall is designed for decision-making, not just display.

Designing a Portfolio Wall for Governance-Level Decision-Making

A wall that replaces a steerco must evolve beyond visual management, it must become a living governance system. Here’s how to design it for full functionality:

1. Make Decision Rights Explicit

Every attendee should know:

• What decisions they are empowered to make

• What requires escalation (and how)

• Who owns each item on the wall (not just the task, but the outcome)

Use simple markers or overlays to denote items that require:

• Funding approval

• Risk sign-off

• Cross-Tribe coordination

• Escalation to ExCo or BoD

Why it matters: Decision ambiguity kills momentum. Clarity allows fast, empowered action.

2. Embed Risk and Compliance Functions

Risk, Legal, Finance, and Regulatory SMEs must be at the wall not watching from a distance.

They should:

• Be invited to all planning and wall sessions (or minimally, join on a defined cadence)

• Review flagged items on the wall in real time

• Co-create mitigations and escalation paths with delivery teams

• Help shape proactive controls, not just reactive reviews

Why it matters: Risk visibility in the flow prevents surprises and late-stage derailments. It replaces the need for separate sign-off meetings.

3. Build in Structured Governance Rituals

Treat the Portfolio Wall like a living boardroom, with a rhythm of review and adjustment.

Example cadences:

• Fortnightly Wall Review: Delivery focus with risk, enabler, and Tribe leads

• Monthly Strategic Prioritisation: Align roadmap, budget, and trade-offs

• Quarterly Alignment Loop: Interface with ExCo or Board for funding and long-range planning

Introduce structured agenda categories:

• Top Priorities / Value Progress

• Risks / Early Warnings

• Capacity / Resource Constraints

• Strategic Shifts

• Decisions Needed Today

Why it matters: Rituals build consistency and create space for high-quality decisions—without needing to schedule separate governance layers.

4. Integrate Funding and Value Realisation Conversations

Funding shouldn’t be “set and forget.” Bring value alignment into the wall.

You can:

• Colour code or tag workstreams based on funding status

• Surface return-to-value conversations live, not six months later

• Align Thematics and Tribe-led Change to business outcomes, not just deliverables

Why it matters: Agile budgeting lives here. Decisions about whether to continue, pivot, or kill work should be in rhythm with what the wall reveals.

5. Use Escalation Protocols Instead of Steerco Detours

Design a fast lane for escalation:

• Use “Escalation” tags or stickies (digital or physical) for immediate visibility

• Assign a pathway for each escalation: who it goes to, what’s needed, and expected time to decision

• Ensure walls escalate up, not sideways into shadow governance

Why it matters: Escalation shouldn’t mean “pause work.” It should mean “intelligently route for support.”

6. Train Leaders to Govern in Flow

One of the biggest reasons steercos persist? Senior leaders don’t know how to govern without them.

That must change. Leaders must be:

• Coached on how to participate in Portfolio Walls

• Encouraged to ask questions at the wall, not in private decks

• Shown how walls give more control through better context

Why it matters: Leadership evolution is the linchpin. If they don’t shift, the wall becomes background noise and the steerco lives on.

7. Connect Wall Outcomes to Performance and Risk Systems

To close the loop, connect the wall to:

• Your OKR platform

• Risk register

• Funding tracker

• Performance dashboards

Use QR codes, links, or embedded views. If physical, use companion digital tools or dashboards (Power BI, Confluence, etc.) where required.

Why it matters: If walls are disconnected from enterprise systems, they can’t scale. But if they integrate, they become the single source of truth.

Design Element: Explicit decision rights Why it’s Critical: Empowers real-time action

Design Element: Risk & compliance roles embedded Why it’s Critical: Prevents governance silos

Design Element: Structured rituals & rhythms Why it’s Critical: Replaces steerco cadences

Design Element: Value + funding visibility Why it’s Critical: Drives outcome-based planning

Design Element: Escalation protocols Why it’s Critical: Removes blockers without delay

Design Element: Leadership coaching Why it’s Critical: Builds trust and literacy, psychological safety

Design Element: System integration Why it’s Critical: Makes the wall the governance backbone

When these elements are embedded, the Portfolio Wall no longer supports delivery, it governs it.

No decks. No shadow decisions. No performance theatre.

Just clarity, coherence and courage in real time.

Can a Bank Function Without Steercos?

Yes, in theory and in practice but not without first… intention.

For a bank or any highly regulated, culturally conservative organisation, portfolio walls must absorb the necessary functions steercos were created to serve:

• Compliance and risk escalation

• Formal approvals for funding gates

• Strategic alignment with executive priorities

This can be done if you:

• Embed legal, risk, finance and architecture roles into the portfolio wall rhythm

• Clarify decision rights at the wall (not every risk needs a separate forum)

• Codify rituals for risk handling, dependency resolutionand release management

• Run governance in rhythm with delivery, so approval points don’t delay the flow

In this setup, compliance is not sacrificed, it’s brought into the flow of work.

Can They Coexist Temporarily?

Yes and in most transitions, they must.

Some senior leaders are still wired to trust formal structures. For them, the portfolio wall may look too informal or “not senior enough.” That’s not an argument to keep steercos forever but a signal that coexistence is a stepping stone.

Running both side-by-side for a few quarters allows:

• Side-by-side comparison of effectiveness

• Identification of duplication

• Measurement of lag time, overhead, and rework

• A clear narrative for why one should replace the other

However this coexistence must have an expiry date. Otherwise, the old structures will persist by default, draining energy from the new.

Why Tribe Portfolio Walls Must Replace Steercos

The Tribe Portfolio Wall is not a delivery tool. It is a governance space for transformation in motion. If designed well, it can:

1. Elevate from task-level visibility to Tribe-level decision-making

2. Include all the necessary actors - Tribe leads, enablers, and capability owners

3. Embed regulatory and risk oversight within the rhythm, not outside of it

4. Support prioritisation and trade-off decisions grounded in context, not politics

5. Align the “what” and “why” of the work with the “how” in real time

The wall becomes a place of shared ownership. Where leadership sees, hears and decides not based on slides but in direct relation to what’s emerging on the ground.

The Spiritual Edge – Wu Wei in Governance

In Taoist philosophy, Wu Wei teaches aligned, intentional flow. It’s not about inaction, it’s about non-coercive action, moving with the nature of things. This principle applies to governance as well.

A portfolio wall, when well-crafted, is Wu Wei in practice:

• It aligns structure with purpose

• It allows decisions to arise when they’re needed, not forced through artificial cycles

• It fosters harmony between delivery and oversight - without overreach

The wall doesn’t eliminate structure. It embeds it in motion.

Steercos were built for a world that no longer exists. Portfolio walls are designed for the world we’re already living in. If we want to govern adaptive enterprises, we must evolve our rituals to match the reality.

Let the wall become the place where delivery meets leadership, where risk is surfaced in flow, and where governance becomes a living system.

Not a meeting. A rhythm.

Not a report. A conversation.

Not a checkpoint. A pulse.

IV. The New Blueprint – From Delivery Machines to Purposeful Organisms

If the old operating model was a machine—predictable, linear, top-down, then the new model must be something entirely different.

Not faster. Not “more Agile.” But fundamentally rewired.

A living operating model is one that can sense, respond, and evolve. It doesn’t require heroic effort to adapt. It is built for change, because it understands itself not as a structure, but as a system in motion.

From Delivery to Decision-Making in Flow

In many enterprises, delivery teams have matured. Agile ceremonies are in place. Tools are everywhere. But decision-making still happens elsewhere, slowly, behind closed doors, disconnected from context.

The new blueprint demands more.

It requires that:

• Decisions are made in rhythm with delivery, not in delay loops

• Strategy is not handed down quarterly, it is co-evolved continuously

• Risks are surfaced in flow not managed via sanitised reports

• Trade-offs happen at the wall with the people who live the consequences

In this model, governance is not a layer—it is a rhythm.

And the wall is not a mirror it is the mechanism.

From Fragmented Functions to Shared Outcomes

The machine model fragmented accountability:

• Business set the vision

• Tech delivered it

• Risk reviewed it

• Finance paid for it

• Operations responded when it broke

The result? Everyone was “involved,” but no one was accountable end-to-end.

The new model unifies around shared outcomes.

That means:

• Enablers sit alongside delivery not upstream or after-the-fact

• Risk is embedded in decision points not pulled in when it’s too late

• Strategy, operations, tech, and compliance work from one view of the truth

• Walls become the central nervous systems of the enterprise not passive artefacts

This is not cosmetic. It’s structural. And it requires leaders to reorganise not just teams—but thinking.

From Compliance Afterthought to Embedded Integrity

For many, compliance still feels like an external constraint something to “get through” at the end of a sprint, release, or program. It shows up late and loudly, often at the worst possible time.

But in a living system, integrity is not external—it is embedded.

That means:

• Risk and legal aren’t reviewers—they are co-creators of viable solutions

• Approvals don’t delay—they are built into flow, with pathways visible to all

• Controls evolve with context, not copied blindly from legacy mandates

This shift is cultural. But it is also architectural. Portfolio walls become the visible edge of integrity the place where compliance lives and breathes, not just reports in.

From Agile as Process to Agility as Consciousness

At its core, this blueprint is not about scaling Agile—it’s about restoring organisational consciousness.

A conscious enterprise:

• Knows why it exists

• Can see itself clearly

• Learns from feedback, not just metrics

• Designs its systems around coherence, not control

Agility is no longer a framework. It is an expression of maturity. A sign that the system can think for itself, adjust in real time, and remain grounded in its purpose.

This is not about doing Agile.

It is about becoming alive to change.

The Architecture of a Living Operating Model

From Hierarchy as control

To Structure as flow enabler

From Static governance

To Real-time governance in rhythm

From Risk as blocker

To Risk as embedded intelligence

From Steercos for power

To Walls for shared visibility and action

From Status updates

To Context-rich decision forums

From Agile for teams

To Agility for the enterprise

What This Demands of Leadership

This shift does not start with new tooling. It starts with new leadership intent.

Leaders must:

• Choose visibility over control

• Show up in the rhythm of work, not above it

• Learn how to govern in flow not through steering, but through alignment and presence

Leaders who make this leap unlock not just delivery speed but organisational coherence.

Thought

The organisations that will thrive tomorrow are not the ones who scale Agile frameworks fastest.

They are the ones who learn how to become coherent systems aligned in purpose, attuned to risk, empowered at the edge, and alive in their decision-making.

It’s not just an operating model.

It’s an evolution of how we govern, lead, and move together.

V. Lessons from the Field – The Real Cost of Misalignment

No transformation fails all at once.

It unravels gradually through small misalignments, silent compromises, and legacy reflexes that go unchallenged. If Section IV showed us what’s possible, this section grounds it: what happens when organisations stop evolving but keep pretending they are.

The Decay You Don’t See on Dashboards

At first, the signs are subtle:

• Teams stop estimating, citing “urgency” or “efficiency”

• Coaching capabilities shrink, then vanish altogether

• Ceremonies become rituals performed, but not embodied

• Steercos reappear, this time as “cross-functional forums,” but really just centralised checkpoints

On the surface, delivery continues. But beneath it, alignment fractures.

Leaders make promises disconnected from the realities of the teams.

Decisions get made two levels removed from the context.

And slowly, the organisation stops learning. It starts complying internally.

The Cost Isn’t Just Speed - It’s Trust

Misalignment is expensive but not always in dollars. It costs:

• The trust between leaders and teams (“Why are we redoing this again?”)

• The credibility of agile ways of working (“We said we were empowered… we’re not.”)

• The coherence of the enterprise (“Strategy says one thing, delivery shows another.”)

Once trust frays, cynicism spreads.

Cynicism is the silent killer of every transformation.

The Role of Misfit Leadership

Organisations often underestimate the impact of leadership DNA. When executives arrive from legacy institutions and bring top-down control models with them, they don’t just shift the org they shift the psychological contract.

They signal:

• “Agile is fine, but real decisions happen elsewhere.”

• “We support change, as long as it doesn’t threaten control.”

• “Governance = PowerPoint + permission.”

The transformation dies not because people resist change but because the system stops supporting it.

A Lesson from the Wall

Imagine in a Tribe where we reintroduced the Portfolio Wall not just as a visibility tool but as a governance platform. We invited Risk, Finance, and Architecture to sit beside Delivery Leads not above them. We built rhythms that absorbed approvals, surfaced risks and supported trade-offs.

What happened?

• Steerco escalations dropped dramatically.

• Duplication disappeared.

• Leaders started showing up—not just to observe, but to decide.

• And most importantly, teams felt seen.

When you move governance into the rhythm of work, you don’t lose control.

You gain coherence.

Misalignment Is a Systemic Issue Not a People Problem

Too often, when things go wrong, people get blamed.

The truth is: no coach, no product owner, no delivery lead can succeed inside a broken system.

If decisions are siloed, if value is unclear, if governance is scattered the people will always struggle, no matter how capable.

You don’t fix this with upskilling or reorgs.

You fix this by rewiring the system so that purpose, people, and process align.

Final Thought for This Section

Transformation doesn’t fail because people don’t try.

It fails because the system was never redesigned to support what it asked people to become.

Let’s stop blaming the wrong things.

Let’s start treating misalignment as the system signal it is and redesign from there.

VI. Beyond Agile – Toward Enterprise Consciousness

Agile was never the end state. It was a doorway.

A bridge between the rigidity of the industrial age and the fluidity demanded by the digital one. But somewhere along the way, many organisations mistook the rituals for the destination. They scaled frameworks instead of shifting mindsets. They rebuilt steercos and called it governance. They used Agile to optimise fragments, without addressing the coherence of the whole.

Now, they’re stuck.

To move forward, we need more than agility.

We need consciousness.

Section VII. “But We’re Not Netflix”: Addressing the Governance Myth in Regulated Industries

No one is asking banks to “be Netflix” but we are asking them to stop using regulation as an excuse for stagnation.

Because other regulated companies are already showing us:

You can be compliant—and still govern in flow.

The question isn’t can we do it?

It’s are we willing to redesign what we inherited?

Example:

Imagine this: during a Tribe Portfolio Wall review, a critical data privacy risk is raised on a new initiative. Rather than escalating to a Steerco weeks later, the Risk SME—already embedded in the wall session—immediately discusses the concern in context with the product and delivery leads.

Together, they:

• Define mitigation steps on the spot

• Assign ownership and timeline visibly on the wall

• Capture the decision and rationale in the connected Confluence risk log

• Flag the action for cross-functional visibility via a coloured tag or layer

• Trigger automated alerts to internal audit teams, if required

All of this happens in real time, inside the flow of delivery—not through offline escalations, PowerPoint decks, or follow-up meetings.

That’s governance reimagined:

• Transparent

• Traceable

• Embedded

It’s not less rigorous. It’s just no longer theatre.

This is what it looks like when governance evolves.

This is what it means to govern in flow.

One of the most common objections to modernising governance is this:

“That may work at Netflix or Amazon but we’re a bank. We’re regulated. We can’t just throw out steercos.”

The funniest thing to me is when tech people are against evolution, all of this was built to help you people succeed.

The implication is that tech companies operate in a wild west free of oversight or complexity.

The reality? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Regulated, Accountable and Agile

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Atlassian operate under intense scrutiny:

• Global data privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA)

• SOC2, FedRAMP, HIPAA compliance

• Financial services regulation (e.g. AWS in fintech)

• Intellectual property law and production security

Yet they don’t rely on steercos.

They govern through embedded roles, real-time systems, and intentional design.

Company

Governance Style

Compliance Method

Amazon

Narrative-based decisions, team autonomy

Embedded risk roles, real-time auditability, decision memos

Netflix

Freedom + Responsibility culture, no approvals needed

Embedded compliance, automated guardrails, observability tools

Shopify

Quarterly value and outcome walls

Finance and legal sit inside delivery teams

Atlassian

Portfolio reviews instead of steercos

Risk reviewed in backlog grooming, not post-delivery

Stripe

Decision-making frameworks and design docs

Legal partners work inside product discovery

What unites them isn’t a lack of rigour.

It’s that rigour lives in the rhythm not outside of it.

What Banks Get Wrong

It’s not that banks can’t evolve.

It’s that they default to steercos because they haven’t redesigned governance.

They assume:

• Compliance = control = meetings

• Risk must be escalated, not embedded

• Governance must sit above the system not within it

What Banks Must Learn

Modern governance doesn’t ignore regulation.

It integrates it into the wall, into the rhythm, into the roles.

That means:

• Risk SMEs sit at the wall

• Decisions are tagged, visible, and time-bound

• Escalations are paths, not detours

• Auditable records are generated from the work, not after it

What is Enterprise Consciousness?

It’s not mysticism.

It’s organisational awareness, structurally, emotionally and ethical.

It means:

• The organisation knows why it exists and what value it delivers not just to shareholders, but to society.

• It can see itself clearly, without distortion from power or politics.

• It listens to feedback from systems, from people, from data and adjusts in real time.

• It governs with coherence, not control.

A conscious enterprise doesn’t just react.

It remembers, learns and evolves because its systems are built to support that.

From Operating Model to Living Intelligence

The operating model is no longer a framework on a slide.

It is:

• The culture embedded in rituals

• The mindset expressed in how decisions are made

• The values revealed in who gets heard

• The nervous system of an organisation that’s alive to its purpose

This is what we mean when we speak of living systems.

Not just adaptive. Not just lean but aware.

Your Enterprise Already Knows What It Needs

It’s often not more tools.

Not more “transformation initiatives.”

Not another round of Agile coaches.

What it needs is space to breathe.

A system that reflects reality, not performance theatre.

Leaders who show up where the real work lives.

Governance that flows not from control but from trust.

This is the evolution waiting to happen.

Final Word

Agile helped us walk upright.

But if we want to run with purpose, we must evolve again.

Not toward more process but toward greater coherence, consciousness and courage.=

This is not about rejecting the past. It’s about completing its arc and stepping into what the enterprise was always meant to become:

A living, sensing, intelligent system built not just to deliver but also to adapt, to serve the people and to thrive.

Selected References:

Capra, F., and Luisi, P.L., 2014. The systems view of life: A unifying vision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kersten, M., 2018. Project to product: How to survive and thrive in the age of digital disruption with the flow framework. Portland, OR: IT Revolution Press.

Laozi, 1988. Tao Te Ching. Translated by S. Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial.

Senge, P.M., 2006. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Revised ed. New York: Doubleday.

Skelton, M. and Pais, M., 2019. Team topologies: Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow. Portland, OR: IT Revolution Press.