Data Governance Operating Model of Roles – Stay Practical

Aug 17, 2010 by Robert S. Seiner in Data Governance, Data Quality, Master Data Management

I know it’s been a while since I have posted on the COE. You see, this summer has been very busy and very disrupted. Travel scheduled, travel changed, travel cancelled and then rescheduled. Lots of client work … always a good thing. The travel mishaps and busy schedule are not a good excuse for my silence but it is the only one I have.

When I last left you, I said I would blog about challenges you might/will face when implementing a Data Governance program. One of the most challenging aspects of implementing a Data Governance program is identifying and getting your co-workers to participate in a clearly defined set of roles and responsibilities associated with the program. No matter what approach you follow to Data Governance, you will need to activate people in specific roles. Some of these may be existing roles, some will be new. This blog provides an outline and description of a set of roles and responsibilities that work well in the “Non-Invasive Data Governance”™ approach to implementing Data Governance programs.

A few years ago on the pages of The Data Administration Newsletter (TDAN.com), as part of a series of articles titled “The Stewardship Approach to Data Governance”, I defined a framework of roles and responsibilities associated with implementing a “Non-Invasive Data Governance”™ program. Several of the chapters of that series dissected the diagram you see below and addressed specifically the different layers and sidebars of the pyramid diagram. In that series of articles I labeled the pyramid diagram as a Framework of Roles & Responsibilities. Given recent scenarios at a handful of clients, I have changed my terminology. I now refer to the framework as the “Non-Invasive Data Governance”™ Operating Model. I use the term “Operating Model” because the roles and responsibilities of a “Non-Invasive Data Governance”™ program play such a crucial operational role in the success or failure of this type of endeavor – from best practices, to acceptability, to long-term sustainability. Several times over the years I have been asked to consolidate all of the roles and responsibilities into a single article and I have always hesitated … until now. In this article I am providing (variations on) all the bulleted information from the earlier articles and slide presentations incorporating the past several years of experience in using the model. For further commentary on the different components of the Non-Invasive Data Governance Operating Model, please refer back to the earlier articles that explain the Strategic Level, the Tactical Level 1, the Tactical Level 2, the Operational Level and the Support Level. If you have any questions after reading this article, or the past article, please drop me a line and we can talk about it.

The rest of this article will define (in one place) each of the layers and components
of the KIK Consulting “Non-Invasive Data Governance”™ Operating Model; starting
with the sidebars on the left and finishing with the layers from the bottom to the
top of the pyramid:

The Support Level

The responsibilities of the Data Governance Program Team are:

• Overseeing enterprise data governance program development
• Architecting the solution and framework
• Administering the program, including facilitating the data governance council meetings
• Providing the agenda for the data governance council meetings to the approved by
  council owner pre-meeting
• Facilitating data governance organization, tactical and operational stewards, the
  data governance council involvement
• Developing and delivering data governance program educational, awareness and mentoring
  materials
• Providing quality assurance – oversight, monitor, report results to governance council
• Establishing, maintaining and periodically reviewing and recommending changes to
  data governance policies, standards, guidelines and procedures
• Assisting in defining data quality metrics for periodic release
• Supporting data quality issue analysis and remediation for “strategic” data
• Conducting audits to ensure that policies, procedures and metrics are in place for
  maintaining/improving the program

The responsibilities of Information Technology (Data SMEs and System SMEs) are:

• Focusing on consistent protection/classification of data by data classification
  (confidential, public, internal use, …)
• Technical handling of data to meet data classification requirements
• Securing IT infrastructure on behalf of the business units that own or have responsibility
  for data
• Assuring that sensitive data, regardless of format, is protected at all times by
  only using approved equipment, networks and other controls
• Championing the integration of data governance within the standard project methodology
• Ensuring that standard project methodology is followed and that policies, procedures
  and metrics are in place for maintaining/improving data quality and the creation,
  capture and maintenance of metadata
• Ensuring that all “strategic” data is modeled, named and defined consistently
• Ensuring that projects source and utilize data as much as is feasible from the designated
  system of record
• Providing technical support for ensuring data quality
• Providing technical support for data governance and data cleansing efforts where
  required
• Ensuring that metadata critical to data governance is included in the metadata resource
  and is accessible

Operational Level

The responsibilities of the Operational Data Stewards are:

• Defining the data that will be used by the organization, how that data will be used
  and how that data will be managed – data definers
• Producing, creating, updating, deleting, retiring, archiving the data that will
  be managed – data producers
• Using data to perform their job and processes and the integrity of data usage
• Creating/reviewing/approving data definitions
• Integrity and quality of data definition
• Producing, creating, updating, deleting, retiring and archiving the data that will
  be managed
• Integrity and quality of the data created or updated in their department or process
• Identifying and classifying data access levels
• Identifying and documenting regulatory and legal/risk issues including data retention
  requirements
• Supporting/sharing knowledge with other stewards
• Communicating new and changed business requirements to individuals who may be impacted.
• Communicating concerns, issues and problems with data to the individuals who can
  influence change

Tactical Level

The responsibilities of the Data Domain Stewards (one per data domain – subject
area of data) are:

• Focusing on the quality of data in a domain (subject area in most cases) for the
  “enterprise”
• Identified by position (or person) as part of a single business unit or functional
  area
• When acting in role of data domain steward, affiliation to business unit becomes
  secondary
• Involved/facilitator in cross business unit resolution of data definition, production
  and usage issues
• May or not be the authority (decision maker); depends on position in the organization
• Escalating well-documented issues to the strategic level with or without recommendation
• Documenting data classification rules, compliance rules, business rules for data
  in their domain (may delegate this)
• Making certain the rules are communicated to all stakeholders of data in that domain
  (may delegate)
• Participating in tactical groups (with other domain stewards, steward coordinators
  and operational stewards) for finite periods of time to address specific issues
  and projects related to their domain and business unit

The responsibilities of the Data Steward Coordinators (one per unit, division or
functional area) are:

• Acting as the point communications person for distributing rules and regulations
  per domain of data to the operational stewards in their business unit (and making
  certain that the operational data stewards understand the rules and risks)
• Acting as the point communications person for their business unit to document and
  communicate issues pertaining to specific domains of data to the proper data domain
  steward
• Acting as the point person in the common data matrix (or data steward repository)
  regular change control process
• Identifying the operational stewards of data per domain for their business unit;
  this typically requires research and inventory time for the data steward coordinator
• Working alongside the data domain stewards and operational data stewards on specific
  tactical data steward teams that are set up for the duration of issue resolution
  or project-focused task
• The data steward coordinator typically has no decision-making authority but plays
  a pivotal role in data governance and data stewardship success
• In the common data matrix, they should fill in the operational data stewards per
  domain for the domains in which their business unit are stakeholders. This may require
  the coordinator to research exactly how and what data is being defined, produced
  and used in their business unit

Strategic Level

The responsibilities of the Data Governance Council are:

• Becoming educated in what data governance means, how it can and will work for the
  organization and what it means to embrace data governance and activate your enterprise
  data stewards
• Approving things that need to be approved (e.g., data policy, data role framework,
  methods, priorities, tools, etc)
• Pushing data governance into their areas by actively promoting improved data governance
  practices
• Making decisions at a strategic level in a timely manner given the appropriate knowledge
  to make that decision
• Meeting regularly (or send alternate), read minutes to stay informed of data governance
  program activities
• Identifying and approving of pivotal data governance roles including cross-enterprise
  domain stewards and coordinators
• Advising the data governance council owner in applying data governance to risk management,
  compliance, business unit-specific governance interests

Executive Level

The responsibilities of the Data Steering Committee (or other named steering committee)
are:

• Sponsoring, approving, championing the enterprise strategic plan and policy
• Communicating with lines of business the expectations and requirements for data
  governance
• Identifying and prioritizing data quality initiatives

In the next blog, I will write about the time commitment associated with each of the levels of the Operating Model. If you have questions about that before the next post, please contact me. Places I will be: I will be speaking on Information Governance at the EIM Conference (Wilshire Conference in Toronto on September 22) and Data Governance at the Advanced Architecture Conference (Bill Inmon & Company in Evergreen, Colorado on September 23) so please stop by and say hello if you get a chance. I will also be speaking at the Data Governance Conference Winter Conference (DebTech International and Wilshire Conferences in December). Come by and share ideas about your Data Governance Program or post a response through the COE.

Tags: data, governance, Master Data Management, Seiner