Athena Bulletin

By: Liana Francisco

Good project governance is not about documenting everything. It is about making sure the right people have clarity on decisions, accountability is visible, and vendor alignment holds when things get complicated. That is what keeps a project accountable to the people it is supposed to serve.

Most government IT modernization projects that run into serious trouble have the same surface appearance at the start: a signed contract, an approved budget, a steering committee, and leadership alignment. The paperwork is in order. What is missing is harder to see until something changes. A partner agency shifts its requirements. A vendor team turns over. A decision that everyone assumed someone else owned turns out to belong to no one.

When projects stall or fail, the cause almost never traces back to the technology. It traces back to governance.

What Proper Governance Actually Looks Like

Project governance in government IT is often treated as paperwork: a charter, a RACI, a status report cadence. Those things matter but they are not governance. Governance is the set of active agreements that determine who decides what, how decisions get documented, and what happens when conditions change.

In practice, that means four things.

Named decision authority across agencies. Cross-agency projects need a business owner with real authority, not just a coordinating role. When partner agencies disagree or a requirement shifts, someone must be empowered to make the call. Lack of clear authority is how projects stall.

Vendor management that goes deeper than status updates. Vendors bring technical expertise, not organizational knowledge. Effective vendor management means structured, ongoing dialogue where both sides learn from one another as the work progresses, not just tracking whether milestones were hit.

Transparency that serves the team doing the work. Decision logs and escalation records are often built as evidence trails to demonstrate that the right steps were followed, not to help teams make better decisions. They should be built for project teams. When people can see what was decided, why, and by whom, it reduces the quiet assumptions that sit unsurfaced until a crisis.

Change management as part of the structure, not a phase at the end. Government IT modernization projects often survive go-live and fail at adoption. Change management belongs in the governance structure from day one, with someone responsible for working alongside the people whose work will actually change.

The Problem with Most Governance Setups

Most project governance is designed for things going according to plan. It does not account for staff turnover, policy shifts, vendor pivots, or budget adjustments mid-project. When those things happen (and they will!), what holds the project together is whether the relationships and decision structures were built to flex.

The agencies that complete government IT modernization projects on time and with real adoption are the ones that treat governance as ongoing work, not a task to check off the list.

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Liana Francisco is a project manager, organizational leader, and coach with nearly two decades of experience guiding complex initiatives, building high-performing teams, and helping organizations deliver meaningful results. Her background spans government consulting, leadership development, business operations, and entrepreneurship, with a strong focus on collaboration and strategic execution.

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