Data Governance Matters

Data Governance Agreements

My friend Tom J is brilliant. Brilliant in the way that can take an idea that everyone uses – but has to employ many many many words and sentences to describe – and crystallize that idea into a perfect term.

You know what I’m talking about. The conversation that begins with the question “How does your organization handle xyz?” Where you get a helpful – but longwinded – answer from someone that is answered by an equally helpful – and equally longwinded – retort from someone else. A third party chimes in, and before you know it everyone is arguing so violently about details that it’s no longer clear that they actually are all in agreement about core concepts.

Actually, I’ve had a few of those conversations with Tom. But the one I’m thinking about – the one that earned him the “brilliant” designation – was one where he used just three little words to describe a tough subject.

“So how do you handle getting different business units to agree on how to treat data?” was the question (or something like that). I’ll never forget his answer: “Data Governance Agreements. You know, like Service Level Agreements (SLAs), but for data.”

Aha! So THAT was the name for those documents I and all my peers in the industry were promoting! THAT was the name for a simple document that could hold complicated clauses. THAT was the name for a concept so self-evident that no business leader could, in good conscience, suggest that these agreements were fundamentally a bad idea.

Data Governance Agreements. DGAs. The acronym will even fit nicely on a flow chart. Thanks, Tom. Wow. Yes.