Good Power Platform Governance Saves You Time, Money & Sanity

For everyday users, low code within the Power Platform is brilliant. It means non-developers can easily build custom business solutions, stay agile and change tact as their organisation evolves. And with the much-anticipated arrival of Microsoft Copilot within the Power Platform suite, low code is about to become no code. The rate of creation will no doubt skyrocket!

One concerning aspect of this is that many organisations have failed to implement the necessary governance to ensure they can keep working this way, risking their environment becoming unsustainable.

The result?

• Unused licenses ( = costs)

• Vulnerable to data breaches

• Forgotten/abandoned apps

• Poor data management

• Inefficient processes

• Duplication

• Lack of sharing capabilities

• Confusion of ‘who built what and why’

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What does good governance look like?

Effective Power Platform governance requires a combination of technical and organisational steps regarding security and compliance policies, user training and guidance and monitoring and reporting tools to track and analyse usage. If you aren’t sure whether you have the right governance in place currently, take a look at our Power Platform audit – we can get you on the right track. If you’re new to Power Platform, we can also set up your governance plan from scratch.

There’s a bit more involved with your governance setup regarding Power BI. But fear not; our Data & Insights team can guide you through our specialist Power BI governance workshop here.

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Here are some of the key areas within your governance plan:

• Governance board: individuals who are responsible for overseeing and governing the Power platform.

• User management: setting up user roles, permissions, and access controls.

• Data management: controlling the access, sharing and retention of data.

• Compliance: ensuring Power Platform complies with internal policies and external regulations.

• Application lifecycle management: managing the lifecycle of applications built on Power Platform, from design and development to testing, deployment, and maintenance.

• Monitoring and auditing: detecting and preventing security incidents, data breaches, and other types of misuse.

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What is Power Platform’s Center of Excellence (CoE)?

The Center of Excellence is your framework for driving this governance within your organisation. Typically, you will have a cross-practice ‘governance group’ within your organisation who are responsible for driving the strategy and adoption of Power Platform.

Implementing a Center of Excellence gets you thinking about communication processes, authority roles, and review processes early on. It helps create your plan and gives you the tools to establish a system that works for you.

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Communication is key

It all starts with the people; good communication is vital when developing new business solutions within Power Platform. This means regular training, sharing new ideas and making sure all decisions are run past management to prevent security slip-ups.

Communication should be an ongoing practice; it’s a great time for teams to review and improve governance with management. When your team is on board with the same objectives and mindset, you can use the Power Platform Center of Excellence to reach your end goal. Working with us, we’ll make sure that your team are set up for success.

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Next steps

The popularity of Power Platform is growing. And it’s going to accelerate at a speed we’ve never seen before when Copilot lands. If you haven’t done so already, now’s the time to get your governance programme in place before the inefficiencies, costs, and security risks start to present themselves.