Getting Your Data Governance Stuff Together

Feb 22, 2012 by Jim Harris in Data Governance, Data Quality

Every organization has to deal with a lot of stuff that can prevent them from getting started with data governance.  And a lot of that same stuff can prevent them from being successful even after they get started with data governance.

In her blog post Stuff Happens, Jill Wanless wrote about, based on what’s working in her organization, six key data governance success factors:

1. Having cross-functional senior management direction and support
2. Having a strong core team dedicated to data governance activities
3. Having a clear and concise scope for data governance
4. Having a business problem that needs to be solved
5. Communicating often
6. Focusing on where you want to be, rather than how things currently work

As always, I definitely agree with Jill’s excellent advice.  To save me some typing, I decided to discuss these six success factors by way of some stuff I put together in previous posts:

1. Being Horizontally Vertical — Data governance requires cross-functional alignment, where the group identities of vertical silos re-identify with the horizontal super-group identity.
2. The Year of the Datechnibus — Data governance requires multi-directional translation and expertise driven by a core team of data-aware, technology-savvy, business people.
3. Tacos, Ingredient Creep, and Data Quality Rigor Mortis — Even the sturdiest of teams can be easily overwhelmed by the most common cause of failure — unmanaged scope creep.
4. Does your Data need a Massage Therapist or a Chiropractor? — Delivering business value requires knowing the data pain points causing business problems that need to be solved.
5. Sneezing Data Quality — Sneezing is about communicating effectively enough so that the idea of a sustained data governance program goes viral throughout your organization.
6. “What is is the was of what shall be” — Getting to where you want to be requires combining your long-term goal with short-term goals that focus on what you need to be doing today.

All of this data governance stuff probably sounds pretty disruptive to your organization’s status quo, and that’s because it is.  But if it’s driven by #4, it’s not disruptive for the sake of being disruptive.

Positive disruptiveness (aka Datenvergnügen) requires getting your data governance stuff together.

Tags: Data Governance, Data Quality