Governance & Role Clarity: the template that ends "wait, who owns this?"
Published 16 October 2026
Every project reaches the moment where someone asks "wait, who owns this?" and the room goes quiet. A decision sits for a week because two people each assumed the other would make it. A client changes direction in an email thread nobody else was on. The PM finds out afterwards.
Last time we covered why governance on a midsize project is one page, not a steering committee. This is that page, ready to fill in. The Governance & Role Clarity template is now in the member vault.
What is in the template
1. Decision rights
A table with one row per type of decision: scope and budget, design approval, technical approach, and timeline and resourcing. Each row has a named client decision maker and a named agency decision maker. One person each, not a team. There is a spare row for anything specific to your project.
2. Escalation path
Three levels. For each one you note who is involved, what goes there, and how long a decision can wait before it moves up. The time limits are placeholders: two working days, three working days, then the same week. Change them to suit the pace of your project, then hold to them.
3. Decision log
Date, decision, who made it, what it affects. Four columns, started on day one. It earns its place the first time someone contests a call and you can show when it was made and by whom.
4. Sponsor review
A 30 minute slot with a fixed agenda of three items: decisions needed, risks above the line, and budget position. Book every one into diaries for the whole project at once, so the cadence exists before anyone gets busy.
How to use it
Fill it in before kickoff, using what you already know from the brief and the scope statement. It should take about half an hour. Then send it to the client as a draft and ask them to correct the names. That is the point of doing it early: they are reviewing something, not negotiating from a blank page in the meeting.
Walk through it at kickoff, straight after the scope statement. The two belong together. Scope says what is being delivered, and governance says who can change it. From then on, when a change request lands, you point at the table instead of relying on memory or seniority.
Where it goes wrong
Naming a group. "The client team" is not a decision maker. Every cell should hold a name.
Never showing the client. If they have not seen it, it is a wish list, not governance.
Treating it as paperwork. If nobody points at it when a decision is contested, it is not doing its job.
It works alongside the RACI Matrix, not instead of it. A RACI covers who does the work. This covers who makes the call.
The template will not make decisions for you. It makes sure everyone knows whose decision it is before the pressure starts.
Decision rights, escalation path, decision log and sponsor review in one document, ready to copy and fill in. Included for every founding member.
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