Govern: Who Decides How Your Team Uses AI?

When I taught high school in northern Zambia, I learned something in the first week of every term: the class with clear rules learned more. Not harsh rules. Clear ones. Everybody knew who decided what, and what happened when things went off track.

Govern is the NIST framework's version of first-week rules. Before your team adopts another AI tool, answer three questions. Who is allowed to approve a new AI tool? What uses are off-limits no matter what? And who is accountable when something goes wrong?

Write the answers down. One page is fine. It doesn't need to be a legal document; it needs to be a document someone actually reads. Most AI messes I've seen didn't start with a bad model. They started with nobody being in charge.

Revisit the page twice a year, because the tools will change faster than the principles. And make the owner a named human, not a department. Departments don't feel accountable; people do.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.