Data Governance Matters

This past week the U.S. media have been abuzz about President Obama’s first-day-in-office efforts to bring transparency to government. And there are many stories around the theme of the balance of power between the three branches of the U.S. government. It’s fun to watch newscasters reminding viewers about the Legislative branch that makes laws, the Judicial branch (courts) that interpret rules, settle disputes, and deal with non-compliance, and the Executive branch that runs the government. They remind us that during our country’s first few administrations, the Executive branch wasn’t much bigger than the other two!

What does this have to do with Data Governance? Most programs I know have a three-part mission similar to the governmental model. One part of the program collects/makes/aligns rules (policies, standards, business rules, data definitions, etc.). Another governance mechanism deals with conflicts and non-compliance. And a third effort provides services to data stakeholders and works to embed rules and controls into business, IT, and data management processes.

It doesn’t really matter how big or small your program is, or what data you’re working with, or the ultimate goals of your program. Whatever your scope, you need to address all three missions if you’re going to create sustainable success.

Here’s a thought… do you think info-savvy President Obama just might “get” the concepts of Data Governance?

The Data Governance Institute is vendor-neutral. But we’re not tool-blind. It’s just that for a long time, there weren’t many tools that really addressed Data Governance and Stewardship needs.

This is changing, thank goodness. And I am LOVING IT! After all, building rules (policies, standards, business rules, DQ checks, etc.) into processes and controls is key to sustainable success. And having technologies that can be used by non-technical Data Stewards as well as IT staff are key to making substantial improvements to data.

The fine folks from ComputerWorld and Kalido have asked me to join them on January 28th at 11 AM EST (GMT-5) to discuss this topic. We’ll be focussing on three uses of technology - to capture/define rules, to build those rules into workflows/processes, and to track changes to data in an audit-friendly way. Cool stuff. We’ll also take a few minutes to talk about the DGI Data Governance Framework and Data Governance processes.

You can get more information on the Data Governance Institute website or at the webinar registration page.

I admit it. I’m old. At least I’m old enough that we didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school. (Or college, or for a bit after that…) Now I wouldn’t dream of leaving home without one. But even so, sometimes I pick up my phone, look at it, and think that it’s simply a miracle.

Had one of those moments today. Here I was, sitting in my sunroom in Florida, looking out the windows over my deck at the bougenvilla taking over the little building in my back yard, the brilliant orange fire vine creeping along the phone wires, the beautiful clear January sky behind my avocado tree. On the desk in front of me was my cell phone, on speaker.

On the line were Data Governance & Stewardship leaders in California, Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, other U.S. states, and even Scotland! How cool was this!

It was a weekly Knowledge Exchange of the Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice. The topic of the day was selling Data Governance to executives. What was interesting was that the dozen or so people talking came from a variety of verticals, but they all had the same challenges. And some of them had great tips to offer. (Topics: hard benefits versus soft benefits, story telling, making dollars quantifiable, measuring the value of work avoided, getting participants to go on the record.)

We’ve already scheduled a follow-up as well as a series of future discussions on organizing programs, setting roles & responsibilities, baking governance into processes, Data Governance communications, working in an SAP environment, and other topics. Probably some of the same folks will be involved, but we get a mix of folks, depending on the topic. Chances are, there will be multiple time zones involved in every discussion.

Me? I learn from every one of these I’m involved in. It’s cool to see what everyone has in common, as well as what makes one program unique, and another one especially successful.

And it’s waaaaay cool to have those moments where I realize I’m having a “small world” experience that was only possible on “Star Trek” when I was a little girl…

I hate it when words just disappear. Maybe they meet up with all those socks that go missing from washing machines. Anyway, somewhere there are a few hundred “brilliant” words written on this topic that have somehow disappeared from this post. I won’t be able to recreate them, but I’m writing something else in this space in their place…

As memory serves, I wrote an ode to my dear friend and colleague Anne Marie Smith, PhD, who has been pondering a question that I know many of us have been wondering about. What are our obligations, as people who manage and govern data, regarding the usage of that data?

Yes, yes, we’re supposed to make it fit for use. But what if our users want to do something with it that violates a corporate policy, or an ethical principle, or a standard, or a process. What if they (or others from the business) don’t understand ramifications, but we do? Is it time for Data Governance workers to serve in some sort of advisory role?

Anne Marie will be sharing her ideas during a “Meet the Expert” session of the Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice (www.DataStewardship.com) on Tuesday, Jan. 27, at 11:00 AM EST (GMT-5). It’s free, but registration is required. I hope you’ll join us.

I know I have a few questions for Anne Marie regarding potential roles for people in our field as the world works its way out of the economic crisis. And I know she has some thoughtful ideas about other ramifications of knowing what we know.

By the way, if you’re wondering if this is “the” Anne Marie Smith - yes it is. Principal Consultant for EW Solutions. Many leadership roles in DAMA. Editor of the  Real World Decision Support journal. Involved in the EIM Institute. Presenter at many many data-related events given by MIT, DAMA, Wilshire Conferences, etc. Highly involved in the Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice. One of the most thoughtful people I know. I’m sure this tough concept is gonna seem more traversable after she speaks.

Guest host, Reese Thomas

At every Data Governance conference I’ve attended, at the dinner tables, in the lounge and on break between  presentations and workshops, one question invariably pops up. It’s usually asked in the first person; some variance of “How do I sell Data Governance to our executive management.” Attendees are hungry to hear hints from the ‘I’ve been there’ people on this topic. I’ve even heard attendees announce after the resulting discussion, ” I’ve received more value from this conversation than from the rest of the conference put together.”

This is why I thought I might mention the up-coming Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice (DGS-COP) on-line event on this topic, coming up Thursday, Jan 22, 2009, 11:00 AM until 12:00 PM EST (GMT-5.)

This will be a discussion in the DGS-COP Knowledge Exchange series, and is one of the last events in this series open to non-members as well as members (available at no charge under the DGS-COP ‘Response to the Economy’ policy for events through January.)

I just looked at who’s registered to attend; I see several familiar names I know have a lot to contribute. Of course, Gwen will be moderating, she’ll chime in with some incites as well. If you are at all interested in developing your program’s executive support, I can’t urge you strongly enough to consider participating.

These events are limited in attendance, but as of this  blog posting, there are still some slots available.

BTW, if your organization’s policy restricts your participation in public forums, you are more than welcome to  email me at reese.thomas@datagovernance.com . I’ll be glad to ask your questions for you;  you can sit back and listen anonymously.

Here’s the link  for more information

So I took some time off from this blog to just… think. Clearly, Data Governance is entering a new stage. It’s no longer the obvious-to-a-few, confusing-to-many discipline that a few of us started evangelizing several years back. Now it’s a given that if your organization has any size and any technical/data complexity, you need to formalize governance as well as management of your information.

So now thousands of us are working within our organizations to establish governance. We’re doing the right things, although maybe not at the pace we’d like. We’re agreeing on common activities and responsibilities. Frameworks are being used to help people communicate and stay in sync. Things are good.

So why don’t I feel great?

It’s because of the world’s economonic crisis and what we all might have done while it was all brewing. Yes, I understand there is much that none of us could have changed. We’re not in a position to stop fraud and crazy Ponzi schemes. We’re not in a position to stop leaders from taking crazy risks. We’re not even in a position to stop corporate leaders from taking calculated risks that might just turn out bad.

But we are - or should be - in a position to help leaders and other users of information to understand how well they should trust the information they’re using to make critical decisions.

The truth is that many of us know - and have known for a long time - about problems with the data we work with. We know when the data is polluted, or incomplete, or just wrong. We know when data quality hasn’t been tested (meaning that all we have are assumptions about how good it is). We know when users of information have all validated data definitions - and when they haven’t and instead are assuming they know what a particular report field means. We know where streams of information from various sources converge into a big repository, and we know when those data streams have been carefully sorted into trusted sets of information and when, instead, we really aren’t sure what we have to work with.

We know so much. And yet we haven’t made sure that the people making world-changing decisions understand whether they’re basing decisions on trusted information or on assumptions.

And that’s just not right.

Yes, I understand corporate politics. (Believe me, I have the scars.) I understand how hard it is to push information up the executive ladder. I understand what happens to people who break protocol.

But many of us do have access to executive users of information. (Or we have the ear of those who have access.) I propose that 2009 be the year of Proactive Data Governance. Let’s use our voices to make sure that leaders understand key facts about the information they rely on when they’re making critical decisions.

I suggest that we keep our messages simple. Let’s all tell our top-of-the-foodchain data users the same thing until they get it.

Let’s tell them that they need to know the answers to 3 questions concerning their data, and that we as Data Governance leaders are ready to help them get answers. Let’s tell them that they should know whether the information they’re relying on

1) Comes from trusted and controlled sources
(or the alternatives: we know that the source is suspect, or that nobody knows because lineage hasn’t been documented and analyzed)

2) Whether it means what EVERYONE thinks it means
(or the alternatives: we know there’s confusion, or that the data definition validation work just hasn’t been done)

3) Whether the data quality is “good enough”
(or the alternatives: we know it’s not, or that it hasn’t been tested, or that rules haven’t been established to say what “good enough” means).

Maybe we can’t do anything about the situation that got us all here. But we can be part of the solution. We can make sure that decision-makers know the right questions to ask, and we can help them get answers. We can help them understand whether they are basing their crisis-recovery decisions on trusted data or merely assumptions.

Now let me stop a few of you who are thinking that my three questions are too simple - you could probably add another half dozen to the list. And you could add a bunch of words to the simple questions:

1- Trusted source?
2- Agreed-upon definition?
3- “Good enough” quality?

Yes, you could cloak these with techno-speak, use words like “profiling” and “lineage” and “metadata repositories” and “taxonomies.” And when you’re talking to techies, you might want to do that.

But if you make this too complex, you won’t get executive attention.

So here’s my suggestion:

Let’s all tell our leaders the same simple message, and let’s use simple, non-technical language to get their attention, and then (if they respond with interest) let’s help them make the decision to proactively do/fund what it takes to get the quality of information they need.

Let’s all send the same message:
If you have answers to three questions about the information you need to make critical decisions
(1-Trusted source?   2- Agreed-upon definition?    3 - “Good enough” quality?), 
   then you’ll know whether you’re basing your decision on solid data, 
      and you can be more informed about the risks you’re taking.  

Right now, around the globe, leaders of corporations, governments, not-for-profits, educational institutes, and other organizations are trying to decide how to react to the current economic crisis. They’re trying to decide how to be proactive, to avoid making future mistakes. They’re pulling report after report after report, looking at their data while they ponder critical decisions.

What do you know about that data? Even more important, what should THEY know about that data? What questions should they ask?

Let’s do what we can, troops…