™Plain Governance is compatible with other professional approaches to governance. They often examine the same arrangements from different perspectives, with overlaps in their concepts and methods and differences in their purposes and requirements.
Professional disciplines develop approaches for the work they undertake. Corporate governance identifies practices for boards and management. Decision-making methods help compare options, while auditing distinguishes how controls are designed and how they operate.
These approaches can be used with Plain Governance. The connections below show how their terms relate to its concepts and models, including distinctions that need to be maintained.
Related professional approaches and terms
Corporate governance: roles and responsibilities
The ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations distinguish the responsibilities of boards and management, including matters reserved to the board and those delegated to management.
Plain Governance describes these assignments through responsibility, authority, delegation, and accountability. Being charged with work is distinct from being answerable to someone for that work. The ASX recommendations identify practices for listed entities; Plain Governance helps examine the arrangements adopted and give reasons for them. See Concepts and Connections.
Decision-making: comparing options
A decision matrix compares options against weighted criteria. Its results can inform a decision made under a governance arrangement.
Plain Governance examines who may decide, which advice or recommendations are required, how these contributions reach the decision-maker, and what follows from the decision. Comparing options and arranging how a decision is made are connected parts of the work. See Decision-making.
Evaluation: design, implementation, and operation
Australian financial-report auditing distinguishes a control’s design and implementation from its operating effectiveness. These questions concern whether the control can achieve its objective, whether it exists and is used, and how it operates in practice.
Plain Governance distinguishes an arrangement from its application. Its model examines the conditions for performing an act, such as approving a proposal, including the people and circumstances, the procedure, required attitudes, and subsequent conduct. Whether the arrangement achieves its intended results is a further question. These distinctions help explain different kinds of failure when evaluating an arrangement. See Evaluating effectiveness.
Apply this guidance to your own arrangement or an example.
Plain Governance, developed by Dr Julien Maréchal. © 2026 The Governance Practice.
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