Governance Scenario
Standard 2.2 · Strategic Planning and Innovation
More Evidence Required
By Synnovate · Published 2026 · Governance Scenario
The Situation
The head had brought the proposal three times now. A new approach to assessment - one that several peer schools had piloted, that the research literature supported, and that the head had personally visited two institutions to investigate. Each time, the board had asked for more evidence. More data. A longer pilot. External validation from an independent consultant.
The third presentation was the most thorough she had ever prepared. She had included a literature review, comparative data from six institutions, and a phased implementation plan with clear review points. At the end of it, a trustee said the board would need more time to consider.
After the meeting, the head said to the deputy: I don't think this is about the evidence.
Provocations
- "When a board asks for more evidence after three presentations, the question is no longer about evidence."
- "Risk aversion dressed as rigour is still risk aversion - it just takes longer to identify."
- "A board that perpetually defers innovation decisions is making a decision: to stay still."
- "The cost of not deciding is real and rarely appears in the risk register."
Considerations
Boards have a legitimate role in scrutinising proposals before approving them. Requesting evidence, asking for pilots, seeking external validation - these are not obstruction, they are oversight. The question is whether the scrutiny is proportionate and bounded, or whether it is indefinite and structural.
When a proposal has been through three substantive presentations and the board's response is still to request more, the board should ask itself honestly what evidence would actually be sufficient. If no answer exists, the block is not about the proposal - it is about the board's relationship to innovation, or its relationship to this head, or its assumptions about what a school like theirs should do.
Boards that default to caution protect themselves from certain kinds of failure. They do not protect the institution from the failure mode of standing still while the environment changes. Both are real risks. A board with a genuinely sophisticated view of risk manages both, and has a clear framework for evaluating innovation proposals against it.
The head's observation - I don't think this is about the evidence - is important. When a head loses confidence that the board engages with proposals in good faith, the governance relationship has developed a problem that more evidence will not solve. The board should create conditions in which it can have a direct conversation about what it is actually weighing.
Platforms like Loom allow boards to track the history of a proposal - what was presented, what was requested, what was decided - so the trajectory of a decision is visible to all trustees, not just those who attended every meeting.