5M Board Depth

The 5M Board and Senior Leadership Depth Programme for Non-Profits, SMEs and Mid-Sized Entities

Structured board development of the kind large boards receive as standard, designed for the boards and senior teams of growing organisations.

Your board works through the ideas of Stitch In Time and 5M Unbreakable, applied to your own organisation and to the industry and national pressures you face today. Every session is active: boards and executives score, build, trace, debate and commit, together.

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I.S. Matthew facilitating a session for senior leaders

FormatsOne hour to a three-day retreat

ForBoards, chief executives and senior teams

Built onStitch In Time and 5M Unbreakable

Led byI.S. Matthew

Who it is for

Large listed boards have induction programmes, governance advisers and annual evaluations. The boards of non-profits, owner-led firms and mid-sized entities hold the same duties with far less support, and often meet for the first time as a board without ever having trained together.

Non-profits

Boards that answer to donors, members and the people they serve, and need accurate reports from their programmes before the donor report goes out.

SMEs

Founder-led and family firms bringing in independent directors, and owners learning to share a mandate they once held alone.

Mid-sized entities

Growing companies, cooperatives, savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) and public bodies whose board practice has not grown with the organisation.

What it draws on

The two books. Every concept, exercise and case comes from my two books, Stitch In Time and 5M Unbreakable, and from The Africa Corporate Governance Atlas, the companion casebook to Stitch In Time. Nothing is invented for the session.

Your organisation. Before the session, the chair completes a short Context Brief and shares recent board packs. For the longer formats, your board, executive and a mid-level group take the 5M ORD Scan, so the board sees how each level of staff sees the same organisation.

Your industry and your country. The board maps the regulatory, funding, currency, technology, labour and political pressures it identified in its own brief, and sets each against the five governance domains of Stitch In Time.

Four formats

One programme in four lengths. Each format can be booked on its own, and each one prepares the board for the next.

Format	Length	Suited to	Your board leaves with
The Board Mirror	One hour	A slot in a board meeting or a board breakfast	A shared language, a first distortion score and one early stitch each.
The Back Room Session	Three hours	A half-day board development session	ORD Scan results, a Pressure Map, one domain examined in depth and a first stitch with an owner and a date.
The Board Depth Day	Eight hours	A full development day for the board and senior team	A Core Map, one board figure traced to its source, a three-category decision list, a scored board agenda and the first quarters of a 24-Month Stitch Horizon.
The Board Depth Retreat	Three days	A residential offsite for the board and management	Early versions of all five Stitch In Time instruments, a redesigned board agenda, a Maintenance Plan for each leader and a signed commitment page.

The three-day retreat

Board members and senior management spend three days away from the office, learning from the books and from their own organisation in its current context. Phones stay away during sessions, by agreement.

Day one

See the gap

The Three Rooms, the Two Introductions and the full ORD Scan results, with each level of the organisation compared. After dinner, the Five Fears I set out in 5M Unbreakable: how the fears of senior leaders affect the information they receive.

Day two

Read the five domains

The Pressure Map, then hands-on work in Core Load, Talent Flow, Everyday Work and Signals and Risk, using your own board pack. After dinner, the Case Tribunal: teams of directors and executives judge documented African governance cases.

Day three

Make the first stitch

Power and Mandate, with the chair and chief executive working together, a live Three Rooms board meeting, the 24-Month Stitch Horizon and the Cadence set in the calendar. The board signs its commitment page before it leaves.

Within forty-eight hours the chair receives the commitment page and photographs of every flipchart and wall chart. A ninety-day review checks what the first stitch has produced.

The one-hour Board Mirror

The shortest format, and the usual first step. It fits inside a scheduled board meeting.

Time	Segment
0:00 to 0:05	The two conversations every board has
0:05 to 0:15	The Three Rooms: the Front Door, the Inner Room and the Back Room
0:15 to 0:30	The Mirror: board and executive score the same statements, side by side
0:30 to 0:42	The Five Warning Signs
0:42 to 0:55	One documented case, chosen for your sector
0:55 to 1:00	One early stitch each, and the next step

The full facilitation scripts, case briefs and handouts are held in the facilitator area.

Try a sample

Four short pieces of the programme to try on your own organisation. Your answers stay in this browser and are never sent anywhere.

From Stitch In Time: the five signs

Read each sign and mark how true it is of your organisation today. The sign you recognise fastest usually shows the domain where your problems begin.

How an engagement runs

Before. The chair completes the Context Brief and shares recent board packs. For the three-hour, one-day and three-day formats, three levels of the organisation take the 5M ORD Scan, and the results are shown first to the people present at the session.
During. Short teaching from the books, then practical work on your own material: scoring, mapping, tracing, debating cases and drafting the commitments the board will keep.
After. The commitment page and photographs within forty-eight hours, the ORD Scan report within two weeks, a review at ninety days and an optional repeat scan at six months.

Sessions run in person in Nairobi, Kampala or at your chosen venue. Fees are agreed with each organisation according to the format and the size of the group.

Bring Board Depth to your board

Tell us about your board and the format you have in mind, and we will propose dates and a plan.

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