IT Governance & Control Services

Build the guardrails and operating models that turn ungoverned Microsoft environments into defensible, scalable platforms, without killing innovation.
Your Microsoft investment keeps growing: Microsoft 365, Power Platform, SharePoint, Azure, and Dynamics 365. So does the sprawl. Shadow apps proliferate. Ungoverned automations multiply. Ownership is unclear. Security gaps accumulate. Audit findings repeat. The platform that was supposed to enable your organization is becoming a liability.
Governance isn’t bureaucracy. It’s the operating model and guardrails that prevent Microsoft platforms from turning into uncontrolled chaos. Done right, governance accelerates delivery, teams move faster when decisions are clear, patterns are established, and guardrails prevent mistakes. Done wrong, or not done at all, governance becomes either a bottleneck or a fiction.
i3solutions provides IT governance consulting services designed for real enterprise Microsoft environments. We can help your IT leaders implement governance frameworks that reduce risk, establish clear accountability, and enable faster delivery. Our work spans assessments that show exactly where you stand, blueprints that define how to govern, and hands-on implementation that makes governance operational and effective.

What IT Governance Actually Means

Governance has a reputation problem. People hear “governance” and think bureaucracy, slowdowns, and blocked requests. That’s governance done wrong, or governance that’s only a label without substance.

Real governance means:

• Clear ownership. Who approves what? Who maintains what. Who’s accountable when something breaks? Without ownership, problems persist because nobody’s responsible for solving them.
• Defensible controls. Security baselines, access policies, and audit trails you can explain to leadership, auditors, and security teams. Controls that exist on paper but aren’t enforced aren’t controls; they’re liabilities.
• Environmental strategy. Where things get built. What’s allowed in production? How changes move through environments. Without environment strategy, production becomes a testing ground, and stability suffers.
• Policy enforcement. DLP rules, connector governance, sharing controls, configured, monitored, and maintained. Policies that exist but aren’t enforced or reviewed create false confidence.
• Scalable patterns. Standards and templates that let teams deliver faster because they’re not reinventing decisions on every project. Patterns capture what works, so teams can build on proven foundations.
• Operating model. Procedures for how governance is maintained over time. Review cadence, exception handling, onboarding, and continuous improvement. Governance without an operating model decays within months.

Done right, governance is a delivery accelerator. Teams move faster when they know what’s approved, which patterns to follow, and who to engage when an exception is needed. With the right Microsoft governance consulting, these guardrails are designed to enable speed, and not restrict it. In contrast, ungoverned environments move more slowly. Every decision is ad hoc, every deployment is uncertain, and every incident exposes gaps that should have been prevented.

Who This Is For

This service is designed for:

• IT leaders at mid-to-large enterprises with expanding Microsoft environments, where governance hasn’t kept pace with adoption
• Organizations where SharePoint, Dataverse, or M365 adoption has outpaced governance, shadow apps, ungoverned automations, and unclear ownership are creating risk
• Teams dealing with sprawl: too many apps, too many sites, too many flows, and no clear picture of what exists or who owns it
• Regulated industries where audit readiness and defensibility are requirements, not aspirations
• Leaders who need to enable innovation while maintaining control, governance that supports business enablement, not governance that blocks everything
• Organizations preparing for compliance requirements that demand documented controls, evidence, and operating procedures
• IT teams that have tried governance before but found that policies weren’t enforced, documentation wasn’t maintained, or the approach was too heavy to sustain

This is not a fit if:

• You want to lock down platforms so tightly that nobody can build anything. We design governance that enables; if the goal is prevention rather than enablement, we’re not aligned.
• You want policies written without understanding your environment. We assess before we prescribe. Generic governance frameworks fail.
• You need a full-time governance team. We help you build governance capability; we don’t replace your team permanently.
• You’re not willing to enforce governance once established. Governance that isn’t enforced isn’t governance. If you’re not ready to act on what we build, implementation value is limited.

The Governance Challenge in Microsoft Environments

Microsoft platforms scale quickly. When governance doesn’t scale with them, risk accumulates.

Where we see organizations struggle:

• Power Platform sprawl. Business users build apps and flows that solve real problems. Then those solutions handle sensitive data, integrate with production systems, and break when their creator leaves. Shadow apps multiply. Nobody knows what exists. Ownership is unclear. Connectors move data to places IT never approved.
• SharePoint permission chaos. Sites multiply as collaboration expands. Permissions are inherited, then get overridden. External sharing happens without oversight. Sensitive content becomes discoverable through search. What started as a convenient collaboration becomes a security and compliance problem.
• Environmental proliferation without a strategy. Developers create environments for projects that end. Test data mixes with production. Configuration changes happen directly in production because there’s no deployment discipline. There’s no clear distinction between sandbox, development, test, and production.
• Shadow IT returns. Users route around IT controls because the governed path is too slow, too restrictive, or unclear. Consumer tools appear with company data. Unsanctioned integrations connect systems. Compliance exposure grows invisibly.
• ALM and release discipline are absent. Changes move directly to production without review, testing, or documentation. “It works on my machine” becomes “it broke in production.” Rollback requires recreating from memory. Version control is informal or nonexistent.
• Audit findings accumulate. Every audit reveals gaps. Remediation happens, then drift returns. The same findings appear next year because there’s no operating model to maintain controls. Governance is a project that ends rather than a capability that persists.
• Governance attempts have failed before. Policies were written but not enforced. Documentation was created but not maintained. The governance initiative launched with fanfare and faded within months. Teams learned to ignore governance because it didn’t matter.

The pattern is consistent: platforms scale faster than governance. The question isn’t whether to govern, it’s whether you’ll do it proactively or reactively after incidents force action.

Our IT Governance Services

We deliver hands-on governance assessments, blueprints, and operating models that result in enforceable controls and sustainable governance capability across Microsoft environments.

Microsoft Governance Risk Scan

Timeframe: 10 business days

Rapid assessment that shows exactly where you stand:

• Inventory your Microsoft environment: apps, flows, sites, environments, and integrations across M365 and Power Platform
• Score risk based on data sensitivity, ownership clarity, and technical health
• Identify security gaps, compliance exposure, and governance deficits
• Prioritize findings by risk severity and remediation effort
• Deliver a 90-day action plan with quick wins and foundational work
• Provide an executive summary for leadership communication

Power Platform Governance and CoE Blueprint

Timeframe: 3 weeks

Design the governance model for Power Platform success:

• Environment strategy: development, test, production isolation; default environment cleanup; environment lifecycle management
• DLP policy model: connector classification, data boundary enforcement, exception process
• Maker governance: who can build what, where, with what approval and oversight
• ALM standards: solution management, deployment pipelines, version control, release process
• RACI and support model: ownership definition, escalation paths, operational responsibilities
• Center of Excellence starter kit configuration and customization for your context

SharePoint and M365 Governance Framework

Establish governance for collaboration platforms:

• Site provisioning governance: request process, templates, naming standards, lifecycle management
• Permission model standardization: inheritance patterns, access review, external sharing controls
• Content governance: retention alignment, sensitivity labeling integration, search scope management
• Teams governance: team creation policies, channel standards, guest access controls
• Governance documentation and stakeholder training

AI/LLM Governance Readiness

Timeframe: 2 weeks

Prepare governance before AI adoption creates ungoverned risk:

• Policy framework for AI use cases: data boundaries, model access, approval workflows
• Prompt and response logging and retention architecture
• Human-in-the-loop requirements for high-risk decisions
• Risk assessment framework for evaluating new AI initiatives
• Operating procedures and governance roles for AI oversight
• Pilot guardrails for controlled experimentation

Governance Operating Model Implementation

Build the capability to sustain governance over time:

• Define roles and responsibilities across governance domains
• Establish policy review cadence and continuous improvement processes
• Build exception handling workflows that balance control with enablement
• Create governance dashboards for visibility and accountability
• Develop training and onboarding for governance stakeholders
• Document procedures for audit evidence and compliance demonstration

Governance Remediation and Cleanup

Address existing sprawl and governance gaps:

• App and flow inventory with ownership identification
• Cleanup of orphaned, unused, or duplicate assets
• Permission remediation for high-risk sites and content
• Environment consolidation and standardization
• Policy implementation for identified gaps
• Transition from an ungoverned to a governed state

How We Work: From Assessment to Operating Model

Phase 1: Discovery and Inventory (Week 1)

Understand what exists before designing governance:

• Inventory your Microsoft environment: Power Platform apps and flows, SharePoint sites, Teams, and environments
• Identify ownership (where known) and ownership gaps (where unknown)
• Assess current governance state: what policies exist, what’s enforced, what’s documented
• Understand business context: how platforms are used, what’s critical, what’s experimental

Deliverable: Environment inventory with ownership mapping and governance baseline

Phase 2: Risk Assessment and Gap Analysis (Weeks 1-2)

Evaluate risk and identify governance priorities:

• Score assets by risk: data sensitivity, business criticality, technical health, ownership clarity
• Identify governance gaps against best practices and your compliance requirements
• Map findings to governance domains: access control, environment management, ALM, data protection
• Prioritize by risk severity and remediation feasibility

Deliverable: Risk assessment report with prioritized gap analysis

Phase 3: Governance Design (Weeks 2-3)

Design governance appropriate for your organization:

• Design environment strategy, DLP policies, and ALM standards
• Define the ownership model and RACI for governance responsibilities
• Create an exception process that enables rather than blocks
• Establish policy review cadence and continuous improvement approach
• Document governance framework aligned to your context, not a generic template

Deliverable: Governance framework documentation with policies, standards, and operating model

Phase 4: Technical Implementation (Weeks 3-6)

Configure governance controls:

• Implement DLP policies with appropriate scope and enforcement
• Configure environment settings and access controls
• Set up ALM pipelines and deployment processes
• Deploy the Center of Excellence toolkit components (if applicable)
• Establish monitoring dashboards and alerting

Deliverable: Implemented governance controls with configuration documentation

Phase 5: Operating Model and Enablement (Weeks 6-8)

Make governance operational and sustainable:

• Train governance stakeholders on roles, procedures, and tools
• Establish review cadence and assign accountability
• Create onboarding processes for new makers and new projects
• Document exception handling and escalation paths
• Validate the operating model through practical scenarios

Deliverable: Operational governance with a trained team and documented procedures

Phase 6: Handoff and Continuous Improvement

Transfer ownership with sustainability in mind:

• Complete knowledge transfer to internal governance owners
• Provide runbooks for common governance operations
• Establish metrics and health indicators for ongoing monitoring
• Define an improvement roadmap for governance maturity

Deliverable: Sustained governance capability with clear ownership

Why Choose i3solutions for Your Governance

• We understand Microsoft environments. i3solutions brings nearly three decades of experience delivering enterprise Microsoft platforms across regulated and complex environments. We are typically engaged when organizations need to establish governance that can withstand real operational pressure – audits, modernization programs, enterprise integrations, and long-term platform scale.
• We design for your context. Generic frameworks fail in real enterprise environments. We assess your organization, constraints, and operating realities before defining governance models that fit your size, industry, risk profile, and delivery culture.
• We implement, not just advise. We configure DLP policies, set up environments, build monitoring dashboards, and establish ALM pipelines. Governance documentation without implementation is fiction. We make governance operational.
• We balance control with enablement. The goal isn’t to lock everything down. It’s to create guardrails that enable teams to deliver faster because decisions are clear and patterns are established. Governance should accelerate delivery, not impede it.
• We build sustainable operating models. Governance that exists only during the project decays quickly. We establish ownership, review cadence, and procedures that keep governance alive after we leave. Your governance will persist because it’s designed to be maintained.
• Senior-led, US-based team. The consultants who assess your environment are the same senior practitioners who design and implement your governance. All work is performed by U.S.-based personnel experienced in enterprise and regulated Microsoft environments.

Security, Compliance, and Governance Considerations

• Compliance alignment. We design governance controls that produce defensible evidence – documented policies, enforced configurations, ownership records, and audit trails. This allows organizations to demonstrate compliance across frameworks without rebuilding controls for every new requirement.
• Security integration. Governance and security intersect across access control, data protection, environment configuration, and monitoring. We work directly with security teams to ensure governance controls align with enterprise security architecture and do not introduce operational gaps.
• Audit readiness. Governance implementation includes evidence design: what is logged, how ownership is tracked, how configurations are documented, and how proof is produced on demand. This prevents last-minute audit scrambling and reactive remediation.
• Change management. Governance alters how environments are built, approved, and maintained. We support rollout through stakeholder alignment, role training, and operational onboarding so controls are adopted and sustained, not bypassed.
• Governance frameworks are designed for expansion: new teams, new workloads, new data domains, and emerging capabilities such as AI. This prevents governance redesign every time the platform footprint changes.

Engagement Options

Microsoft Governance Risk Scan

Timeframe: 10 business days

What you get:

• Environment inventory across Power Platform and M365
• Risk scoring and prioritized findings
• Gap analysis against governance best practices
• 90-day action plan with quick wins
• Executive summary for stakeholders

Best for: Organizations that need visibility into governance gaps and a prioritized path forward, before committing to comprehensive implementation.

Power Platform Governance Blueprint

Timeframe: 3 weeks

What you get:

• Environment strategy and DLP policy design
• Maker governance and approval workflows
• ALM standards and release process
• RACI and support model
• CoE toolkit configuration
• Implementation roadmap

Best for: Organizations scaling Power Platform who need a governance framework before sprawl becomes unmanageable.

SharePoint and M365 Governance Framework

Timeframe: 4-6 weeks

What you get:

• Site provisioning governance design
• Permission model standardization
• External sharing and guest access policies
• Teams governance framework
• Implementation and stakeholder training

Best for: Organizations with SharePoint and Teams sprawl needing consistent governance across collaboration platforms.

Comprehensive Governance Implementation

Timeframe: 8-12 weeks

What you get:

• Full assessment across Power Platform, Power Automate, and M365
• Governance framework design and documentation
• Technical implementation of controls
• Operating model with roles and procedures
• Training and knowledge transfer
• Ongoing support transition

Best for: Organizations ready for comprehensive governance transformation across their Microsoft environment.

AI/LLM Governance Readiness

Timeframe: 2 weeks

What you get:

• AI governance policy framework
• Data boundary and use case approval process
• Logging and audit architecture
• Risk assessment framework
• Pilot guardrails and operating procedures

Best for: Organizations adopting AI/LLM capabilities who need governance before ungoverned experimentation creates risk.

Ongoing Governance Advisory

Timeframe: Monthly retainer

What you get:

• Governance, health monitoring, and review
• Policy tuning and optimization
• Exception handling support
• New capability governance guidance
• Continuous improvement facilitation

Best for: Organizations with established governance who need ongoing expertise for optimization and evolution.