A few months ago I took part in a session that was pushing independent governance for hi-tech, hi-growth businesses. Speaking at the event was a very experienced board member with a bunch of independent directorships to his name. I asked a question around domain knowledge and his reply was interesting;

I know business, I don't need to know the business I direct. I have a computer, I think it's a PC, someone told me I should get an Apple because they're better or something

This is a guy who (really) has a PA write emails and manage his Outlook calendar. It reminds me of a story Zoli told me about his past days at a big blue IT company where an executive he dealt with would have his PA fax printouts of emails to a hotel so that he could hand write a reply, fax them back and have his PA transcribe them back into email.

But getting back to the governance and management issue - how much domain knowledge is necessary for a board member? It's an issue that cam up in a recent post which specifically looked at technical knowledge for web start-up founders. The answers from that post were kind of as expected - basically you can get away without in-depth technical knowledge but;

regardless of which path you choose, don’t abdicate responsibility for the product.  1) It’s your vision, and you should make sure it’s realized correctly.  2) Programming isn’t magic–it’s common sense.  And whomever you work with should be able to explain their thinking to you. 3) Choose good people to work with.  At some point, times will get tough, and you’ll want someone you can trust in the foxhole with you.

I sit on a bunch of different boards - both formal and advisory. If I look at my board involvement, and my skill set, I contend there are three distinct areas of competence;

• Specific operational knowledge (yeah I can create a .NET product with the best of them)
• Domain knowledge (I understand the area within which you work and comprehend the broad issues)
• Governance knowledge (I have no clue what you actually do but God do I know business inside out!)

My descriptors for the three areas will give an insight into the one area that I give little credence to. I agree that hi-growth businesses need board members with connections, who understand scaling issues, have well developed networks and have been through the process before but I contend that if those people have no domain or operational knowledge their utility is severely hampered.

Similarly I believe there is no pressing need for in-depth operational knowledge. Again if I look at my own situation, in all cases I can claim a pretty good domain knowledge for all my board positions, but relatively few of them would I consider myself an expert in - indeed I would contend that the time and effort required to be operationally excellent in any one area could well limit ones ability to gain the business and general skills that a board actually needs.

Keen to hear the thoughts of others - founders, advisors and high level execs.