Theme 1, Article 6: Assurance that strengthens control.

Assurance is widely regarded as a cornerstone of effective transformation governance. It is assumed to provide confidence, reduce risk, and strengthen control. Under certain conditions, however, assurance can counterintuitively weaken executive control.

This is a failure of design.

The role assurance is meant to play

At its core, assurance exists to support executive decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. It doesn’t exist to eliminate risk, nor to replace judgement. Its purpose is narrower and more disciplined: to improve the quality of decisions by testing whether controls are functioning as intended.

Well-designed assurance helps leaders understand where delivery reality is diverging from expectation, where risks are accumulating faster than mitigation, and where confidence may be misplaced. It actively strengthens control.

When assurance drifts beyond this role, when it becomes a substitute for engagement, judgement, or accountability, it begins to erode the very controls it is intended to strengthen.

Why assurance is needed in transformation

Transformation environments amplify pressures that make unassisted executive control fragile.

Delivery signals weaken as they move up the organisation. Optimism bias, always present, seldom acknowledged, intensifies under political and financial pressure. Sponsor auhority carries more lightly before challenge. Decision-makers are structurally distant from delivery reality, yet accountable for the achievemnt of beneficial outcomes.

Assurance exists to counterbalance these dynamics. It provides an independent lens on delivery truth, challenges dominant narratives, and helps executives recalibrate decisions before risks crystallise into material issues.

Its value lies in the reduction of uncertainty at moments of truth that matter.

When assurance weakens control

Assurance doesn’t automatically strengthen control. In poorly designed delivery systems, it can do the opposite.

This occurs when assurance displaces ownership rather than reinforcing it. When findings are treated as decisions. When sponsors defer judgement to reviewers. When assurance is used only to validate prior commitments.

In these conditions, assurance creates the illusion of control whilst quietly eroding it. Oversight appears to exist, but accountability becomes diffuse. Executives are informed, but not directed. Control is passive when it should be active.

Characteristics of assurance that strengthens control

Effective assurance is defined predominantly by behaviour.

It is decision-relevant, focused explicitly on questions executives are actively grappling with. It is timely and aligned to delivery rhythm. It is proportionate, going deeper where uncertainty is highest.

Critically, it is credible. Delivery teams must trust the process sufficiently to engage and honestly. Executives must trust the outputs enough to act on them. Findings are owned, with clear accountability for response and escalation.

Where these conditions are absent, executive authorty is undermined.

Independence: essential, but insufficient

Independence from delivery is a necessary condition for effective assurance.

Independence enables challenge, protects the telling of uncomfortable truths, and underpins credibility. Without it, assurance is undermined.

Yet excessive separation can be equally damaging. Assurance that is detached from context, delivery maturity, and operational reality risks producing conclusions that are technically correct but strategically unhelpful. When this happens, executives either disregard assurance, or treat it as methodological formality - both outcomes weaken control.

Independence must therefore be balanced with informed engagement. Assurance should be separate from decision-making authority, but close enough to delivery to understand what matters.

The tension between sponsorship and assurance

Sponsorship and assurance should be complementary. In practice, they can collide.

Sponsors may commission assurance to validate confidence rather than test it. Assurance may be used to provide cover for difficult decisions or selectively accepted when findings align with an established narrative. In some cases, assurance substitutes for sponsor engagement, creating a sponsorship deficit.

When this occurs, assurance no longer strengthens control; it obscures it and executive authority is diluted.

This is a structural failure.

Designing assurance as part of the transformation delivery system

Assurance that strengthens control has to be designed in.

That design begins with clarity of intent: why assurance is being undertaken, which decisions it is meant to inform, and how it will be acted upon. It requires an integrated assurance architecture aligned to the rhythm of delivery.

Roles must be explicit. Sponsors remain accountable for outcomes. Executives retain decision authority. Assurance informs, challenges, and escalates - leadership decides.

Most importantly, assurance must be dynamic. As transformation risk shifts, assurance focus must adapt. Static models produce static insight in environments that are far from static.

Strengthening control

Assurance impact depends on how it is positioned, governed, and used.

When designed well, it sharpens executive judgement, surfaces emerging risk, and reinforces accountability. When designed poorly, it creates false confidence, diffuses ownership, and weakens control. The effectiveness of executive control materially contributes to the achievement of beneficial outcomes.