HIBS works with systems.
Functions do not operate independently. HIBS treats the whole as one interconnected system, and every engagement starts from the question of what is producing the outcome.
A problem visible in one function may originate somewhere else entirely.
Everything in a system acts on everything else. HIBS considers the parts together, which is why the practice is multidisciplinary.
Cost and Consequence
A saving in one place can create a larger cost somewhere no one is measuring.
Targets and Outcomes
A target can be met while the outcome it was meant to measure gets worse.
Incentives and Behaviour
An incentive can produce the very behaviour it was meant to prevent.
What system is producing this outcome?
Start with reality.
HIBS assesses how the system actually operates, not simply how it is described, documented or intended to operate.
Follow problems to their root.
Complexity can exceed a system's capacity to govern and execute through its existing structures. The source of a problem may sit in how the system is governed, or in how its work, information and technology are organised, and the level of intervention follows from where it sits.
Intervention begins where a problem originates, so that what is built rests on a stable foundation.
Simplification before optimisation.
Complexity is seldom resolved by adding to it. Before anything is added, HIBS establishes how the underlying system works and removes what it no longer needs.
Understand the System
Establish what is producing the outcome.
Remove Unnecessary Complexity
Take out duplication, redundant layers and processes that no longer serve a purpose.
Redesign What Is Required
Build only the structures the system requires.
Then Optimise
Improve and automate a design that already works. Automating an ineffective process amplifies its inefficiency.
Standards institutionalise good governance.
Established standards and frameworks codify recognised expectations for good governance and management systems. Appropriately implemented, they support institutional governance.
They can reduce dependence on informal knowledge, and provide external benchmarks against which governance can be designed and assessed.
Accountability
Responsibilities are explicit and owned.
Repeatability
Work is done the same way each time, whoever is doing it.
Evidence
Governance can be shown, not only described.
Standards establish the benchmark for good governance.
Governance Architecture embeds good governance into how the system actually works.
Systems thinking and consilience.
Systems thinking is how HIBS understands the systems it works with. Consilience describes how it integrates relevant knowledge and evidence across disciplines into one judgement about the whole.
Standards provide external professional reference points within that analysis. Independent professional judgement determines how they are interpreted and applied in context.
The disciplines are connected because the system is connected.
Assess. Design. Implement. Assure.
Our work is designed to ensure that governance works in practice and stands the test of time. It is carried from architecture into operation, and built for change as well as steady state. An engagement covers the stages it needs: one, several or all four.
HIBS uses AI selectively for research, analysis, drafting and testing, to broaden and sharpen the analysis and allow more of each engagement to focus on decisions and implementation. Professional judgement, independent challenge and accountability remain with people. The use of client information is governed by applicable confidentiality, data protection and security requirements.
Assess
Understand how the system actually operates, and what is producing the outcomes it experiences.
Design
Design the governance and operating architecture the system needs for where it is going.
Implement
Embed the architecture in how the system works, including the technology that supports it, so that it becomes part of normal operation.
Where accountable leadership is needed through a transformation, vacancy, transaction, integration, separation or remediation, HIBS can hold a defined interim operating mandate, with the mandate, accountability and end state agreed in advance.
Assure
Test whether governance works in practice as it has been designed, documented and represented.
Put simply, the work answers three questions.
How should the system work?
Architecture
How do we make it work that way?
Solutions
How do we know it works?
Assurance
An audit opinion from HIBS carries weight because it is independent: HIBS does not audit what it designed or implemented, or its own products. Where it has, assurance comes from an appropriately independent party.
HIBS exists to solve complex systemic problems.
Describe what you see: what is changing, what is not working, or where an independent view is needed.
Contact HIBS