Your Steering Committee may be giving you a false sense of control
Most CEOs believe that once a Steering Committee is in place, the ERP program is under control.
There is structure. Senior leaders are present. Reports are reviewed.
From the outside, it looks disciplined.
But this is where many organisations make a critical mistake:
they confuse structure with control.
Why this belief holds
The logic is sound at a surface level.
You bring together your executive team—the people who run the organisation—and expect that collective oversight will guide the program effectively.
The assumption is simple:
“If the right people are in the room, the right outcomes will follow.”
In most business situations, that assumption works.
In ERP programs, it often does not.
What actually happens behind the structure
Over time, the Steering Committee begins to drift away from its intended purpose.
- Meetings are well-run, but lack real control (theatre vs reality)
- Information is presented and accepted, not interrogated (compliance vs challenge)
- Discussions focus on status updates, not decisions (updates vs decisions)
- Reports remain “green” until issues emerge suddenly (false confidence)
- Ownership shifts toward IT, while business leaders disengage (IT-owned, not business-owned)
Consider a common pattern:
For months, the program reports steady progress. Minimal concerns. Positive momentum.
Then, late in the timeline, costs increase, timelines slip, and confidence drops quickly.
To the CEO, it feels sudden.
In reality, the signals were always there—just never surfaced or challenged.
What Your Steering Committee Is Missing?
The issue is not commitment or intent.
It is a mismatch between what is expected and what capability exists.
Steering Committees are typically made up of experienced executives.
But they are not trained to govern ERP programs.
They are expected to:
- Challenge vendors and delivery teams
- Interrogate assumptions
- Identify early warning signals
- Steer organisational change at a systems level
In practice, most have never been equipped to do this.
As a result:
- The right questions are not asked
- Critical assumptions go untested
- Risks remain buried beneath structured reporting
This creates a fundamental gap:
governance exists in form, but not in standard.
What this leads to over time
This gap does not immediately fail the program.
It creates false confidence first.
- Decisions are delayed or made without depth
- Risks accumulate without visibility
- Accountability becomes unclear
- The business assumes someone else is in control
By the time problems become visible, they are no longer manageable—they are structural.
The system may still be delivered.
But the organisation does not gain the control, visibility, or performance it expected.
A more accurate way to view ERP governance
The issue is not that Steering Committees exist.
It is that they are not operating at the level ERP requires.
ERP governance is not progress tracking.
It is organisational control design in motion.
The role of the Steering Committee is not to observe delivery.
It is to actively shape:
- how decisions are made
- how processes operate
- how accountability is enforced across the organisation
This requires a different standard of thinking and engagement.
What a functioning Steering Committee actually does
A high-functioning SteerCo shifts from passive oversight to active control:
- Risk is surfaced early and acted on, not reported late
- Stakeholder alignment is enforced, not assumed
- Processes and operating models are clarified, not deferred
- Data ownership is explicit, not implied
- Roles across project, change, and business are defined, not blurred
- Customisation is tightly controlled, protecting long-term simplicity
- Post go-live improvement is planned, not left to chance
In this model, governance is not a meeting.
It is a mechanism for shaping organisational behaviour.
What you should do next
If you want your ERP program to deliver real value, three shifts are critical:
1. Define the executive standard clearly
Be explicit about what “good governance” looks like—what must be true, not just what is reported.
2. Reset the Steering Committee mandate
Move from reporting to challenge and decision-making.
Every session should resolve a meaningful issue or risk.
3. Close the capability gap at the top
Equip your executives to:
- Ask the right questions
- Challenge with confidence
- Recognise early signals of failure
Without this, the structure will remain, but control will not.
The bottom line
ERP programs do not underperform because the Steering Committee is missing.
They underperform because:
the standard required to make that committee effective is never clearly defined or applied.
Until that changes,
governance will continue to look strong—while outcomes remain inconsistent.
