Governance gets a bad name when it is performed as slides. A steering committee that rediscovers the same risk each month is not governing. It is reviewing a narrative.
The alternative is not to abandon control. It is to put decision rights, RAID, and quality gates where delivery already happens—weekly, with owners, with a path to escalate when a decision is blocked.
Make the week carry the load
Working groups should have terms of reference that state what they can decide. Architecture choices should land in records someone can find six months later. Quality gates should be known before build scales, not invented as a surprise before release.
Steering then has a job: investment, residual risk, and the decisions that cannot be taken below. That is faster than a theatre in which every issue waits for the pack.
Governance that lives in the weekly rhythm protects pace. Governance that only exists in the monthly pack consumes it.