What is a Steering Committee (Governance Board)?
The steering committee (program governance board) is the senior group that owns the big decisions: approving the charter and major changes, releasing funding at gates, resolving what the program manager can't, and ultimately deciding whether the program continues. The program manager runs the program; the committee steers where it's allowed to go.
The exam pattern: issues that cross the program manager's authority — funding changes, inter-program conflicts, benefits-case changes — go to the committee, prepared with options and a recommendation, not just a problem statement.
Worked example
A telecom's 5G-rollout committee — CFO, CTO, two regional VPs — meets monthly. When two component projects both claim the same fiber-crew capacity and the program manager can't reprioritize without hurting one region's committed dates, she brings the conflict with three sequencing options and a recommendation. The committee picks, owns the regional consequence, and the program moves. That's the division of labor working.