All 35 requirements · Governance maturity aspects
Model requirement 4.3
Governance effectiveness
What ISO 37004:2023 asks at 4.3, in our own words, and how it reads inside a controlled group. The draft's public contents heading for it is 4.3 Governance effectiveness.
What the model asks
Governance effectiveness is how well the governing body meets the aims of the ISO 37000 principles by choosing suitable governance practices and putting them in place. For each principle, ISO 37000 gives a statement of the principle, the reasons for it and its key aspects of practice, and governing bodies use these to decide how to apply the principle so that the governance outcomes are reached. Administrative procedures that support the body's work, such as minuting meetings, are not governance activities and should not be mistaken for the practices that a maturity evaluation looks at.
What it means when one board controls another
Effectiveness has to be judged where the practice operates. A group-wide practice may meet the group purpose and miss the controlled entity's own objective, especially where the entity has a regulator or a purpose the group does not share. Rate the practice at each level and record the divergence rather than averaging it away.
Evidence an evaluator asks for
A maturity rating is a claim about how the group governs. The evidence is what proves it operated. Keep both, and keep them together.
- Governance effectiveness: Mapping of governance practices to each principle's objective and key aspects of practice
Where evaluations commonly find gaps
- Meeting administration counted as governance practice
How this requirement enters the rating
This unit supplies the evidence for the effectiveness aspect. Rate it on the six-point scale, cite the record that shows it operated in the period, and read the aspect page before you assign a level. The level descriptions for this aspect are on /aspects/effectiveness/.
It carries 1 evidence item and 1 common gap in the model. One item is enough only if it is the artefact that proves the practice operated, not a policy that says it should. The group application on this page is ours; the requirement and evidence are the model's, stated in our own words.
Requirements that sit beside it
Source for this page
- ISO 37004:2023, Governance of organizations, Governance maturity model, Guidance. The published text of the organizational governance maturity model, which the draft applies to controlled groups. Supplies the three aspects, the measurement framework, the six-point scale, the dimensions and the 35 model requirements stated on this site.
- ISO/DIS 37014 official record. The designation, title, edition, committee, ICS, stage, stage date, page count, price and abstract. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ISO/DIS 37014 free OBP preview. The foreword, introduction, scope, normative references, terms and definitions and the full table of contents, which ISO publishes for free. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
Retrieved 2026-10-21. The requirement above is our statement of the clause in our own words; the official text is linked so you can check it.
Note on the draft: The requirement, evidence and gaps on this page are read from ISO 37004:2023, which the draft states it builds on. The draft's own clause body is not public, so this page does not state it. The clause reference at the top is the draft's public contents heading that this requirement sits under.
The maturity kit, USD 299 one off. The 35-requirement register, the 54-cell maturity worksheet, the evidence list and a dated plan, as PDF, CSV and XLSX.