Dator on Data Governance

Feb 23, 2012 by Phil Simon in Data Governance

Greetings Earthlings:

I’ve have continued my investigation of your planet’s companies and data management habits. I’ve been dutifully reporting my findings to the Overlords at Daton but they are having a hard time understanding some of your management practices. I had planned on going home last week but my stay has been extended for a little while longer.

I’m not happy about this. Do you know how nice Neptune is during what you call February?

Try changing your flight to Neptune bought with frequent flyer miles.

But I digress.

I have heard a great deal about data governance but I sense a disconnect between theory and practice. Some of your senior leaders extol the virtues this term. They issue grand proclamations on how data is essential to their organizations’ health. They speak at conferences. In short, they seem to “get it.”

I agree with their statements. It’s hard to argue with the importance of good data. (Remember, we Datonians need good data to survive. We don’t have food, water, and air on Daton. We only have data.)

But when I look at these organizations data, processes, technologies, systems, applications, and people, something just doesn’t sit right.

Is it possible that these leaders aren’t entirely connected? Are they possible out of touch with their businesses?

Why is it that so few of them have truly imbued a culture of data governance within their organizations? Why do so many of them think that data quality initiatives are one-time events? Why aren’t more of them holding their direct reports accountable for the quality of the information in these very sophisticated, very expensive systems?

Life on Daton

On Daton, we understand that data governance needs to be part of every organization’s DNA. It cannot be “crammed in” like a new application. Executives cannot wake up one day and get data governance religion–and expect immediate results. At a bare minimum, Datonian organizations have in place data quality measures. They never even consider implementing new technologies if data quality is an issue at all.

So why is Earth so different?

Tags: Data Governance, Dator