The recent Information Management article Data – Who Cares! by Martin ABC Hansen of Platon has the provocative subtitle:
“If the need to care for data and manage it as an asset is so obvious, then why isn’t it happening?”
Hansen goes on to explain some of the possible reasons under an equally provocative section titled “Mission Impossible.” It is a really good article that I recommend reading, and it also prompted me to record my thoughts on the subject in a new podcast.
Listen to and/or download (MP3 file) by clicking on the following link (no registration required):
OCDQ Podcast: Data Governance is Mission Possible
Some of the key points covered in this approximately 15 minute podcast include:
- Data is a strategic corporate asset because high quality data serves as a solid foundation for an organization’s success, empowering people, enabled by technology, to make better business decisions and optimize business performance
- Data is an asset owned by the entire enterprise, and not owned by individual business units nor individual people
- Data governance provides a framework for data stewardship, data quality, and effective data usage
- Data governance is the strategic alignment of people throughout the organization through the definition and enforcement of the declared policies that govern the complex ways in which people, business processes, data, and technology interact
- Five steps for enforcing data governance policies:
- Documentation – Use straightforward, natural language to document your policies in a way everyone can understand
- Communication – Effective communication requires that you encourage open discussion and debate of all viewpoints
- Metrics – Meaningful metrics can be effectively measured, and represent the business impact of data governance
- Remediation – Correct any combination of business process, technology, data, and people—and sometimes all four
- Refinement – Dynamically evolve and adapt your data governance policies—as well as their associated metrics
- Data governance is impossible without enterprise-wide collaboration, which is more than just Business-IT Collaboration
- Data governance requires everyone within the organization to accept a shared responsibility for both failure and success
- Data governance is mission critical, and although it sounds like an idyllic vision, data governance is “Mission Possible”
- This blog post will self-destruct in 10 seconds . . . Just kidding, I didn’t have the budget for special effects
Related Posts
Shared Responsibility
Quality and Governance are Beyond the Data
Video: Declaration of Data Governance
Don’t Do Less Bad; Do Better Good
Delivering Data Happiness
The Circle of Quality
The Diffusion of Data Governance
Jack Bauer and Enforcing Data Governance Policies
The Prince of Data Governance
MacGyver: Data Governance and Duct Tape
Additional Podcasts
Direct links to the MP3 files (no registration required):
OCDQ Podcast: Oh, the Data You’ll Show!
OCDQ Podcast: Stand-Up Data Quality (Second Edition)
OCDQ Podcast: Business Technology and Human-Speak
OCDQ Podcast: Open Your Ears
OCDQ Podcast: Stand-Up Data Quality (First Edition)
