What if federated governance is already a legacy model?
Strategic Signals
Insights for CDOs, CFOs and strategic leaders navigating the economics of data.
What The Innovator’s Dilemma reveals about the limits of the Federated Governance?
"The very decision-making and resource-allocation processes that are key to the success of established companies are the very processes that reject disruptive technologies." - Clayton Christensen
This is the dilemma.
And the same pattern is now emerging in data governance.
The Rise (& Plateau) of Federated Governance
Over the last 5 years, federated data governance became the go-to model:
👉 More ownership
👉 Closer to domains
👉 Inspired by product orgs
On paper, it works.
It was a step forward.
It gave power back to the business.
It helped scale accountability across silos.
And I believe in what it enables.
But here’s the trap:
Federated governance was designed to fix the limits of centralisation and decentralisation.
It was not designed for intelligent automation.
The Hidden Cost of Maturity
I also believe this:
Waiting for the "right" maturity can be the most expensive decision.
Too many rollouts end with:
👉 Unclear ownership
👉 Overloaded teams
👉 Diluted decision-making
👉 No real authority
That doesn’t mean federated governance is obsolete.
But if we don't challenge its assumptions, we may find it struggles to evolve.
And what enabled scale yesterday might limit responsiveness tomorrow.
What makes you strong today can make you blind tomorrow.
When Governance Becomes Infrastructure
Governance is no longer just human.
It’s being reshaped by systems that move faster than we do:
👉 AI agents acting on data, in real time
👉 Decisions triggered without human checkpoints
👉 Autonomy scaling faster than policy
In that world, governance needs to be adaptive, even augmented and federated governance risks becoming:
Too human.
Too static.
Too slow.
It’s Time to rethink the Operating Model
➡️ If governance is to keep pace with innovation, it has to stop echoing org charts, and start moving at the speed of the systems it's meant to guide.
Strategic Signals is a curated series of short essays for executives navigating data governance, value creation, and decision systems in AI.
Each signal offers a strategic lens - to rethink autonomy, clarify value flows, and align governance with what actually moves.