We look for individuals known for their decision making expertise and fairness. These are individuals who care more about the decision structure than the decisions coming out of them. Governance educates, trains and certifies large numbers of individuals to play this role. Governance appoints them impartially as they are needed to arbitrate specific decisions.

This is the policing function. Since we don’t have recourse to a police department, we substitute the controls inherent in a competitive setting. Decision structures are designed so there will be a winner and loser for each decision, no matter how it goes. Winning and losing must matter to the players. Decisions that are later rescinded or subverted quickly draw the ire of the other side. Transparency is critical to workings of competition. Interested parties need to quickly know when the process breaks down. Competition, grievance procedures, and the clout of well-placed corporate officials ensure the integrity of decisions.

This means keeping an eye on all players to ensure no one player or group of players garners too much influence in the decision structures, either through the policing, the design of the structures or the appointments to the structures. By all players, we include officials in the governance function. Attempts to game or subvert the structures must be dealt with in a manner that is both timely and highly visible. Should researchers lose faith in the structure it’s easy for them to switch to a perfunctory mode of work, and it can take years of wasted funding for this switch to be unmasked. Management of Risk & Uncertainty becomes a matter of making sure participants to a decision feel the decision has been handled in a manner that is fair and consistent. It’s not mechanical, it’s behavioral.

In World Class R&D we use decision structures as the means to exercise that authority. New projects (feasibility), commercialization⁺, progress assessments and project shutdown are major funding decisions decided within the structures. Initiation of this changed role for governance officials may require extra-governance support (e.g., corporate board members) to ensure the integrity of the decision structures. In any case this does call for further attention to the emotional and professional needs of governance officials during the design of the decision structures.