Entries Tagged 'Data Stewards' ↓

One of the key components of data governance is assisting in determining who the data stewards (some say data owners) are for the critical and/or enterprise data. I tend to like the term steward because ‘owner’ implies full-control over the data, but nonetheless, the terms are generally used synonymously.

It is extremely important that the data governance office provides guidance to the business on who the ‘go to person’ is for the different data domains. IT doesn’t own the data, the business does (despite what anyone may tell you!). A great analogy on how “IT People are like Forklift Drivers” is provided here by Michael R. Farnum. He wrote it so clearly that I won’t even bother to elaborate, but rather urge you to check out his blog post.

In my post ‘8 Reasons why Data Governance fails‘, Carol S asked, “Does anyone have experience in developing a data governance strategy?”. I haven’t talked with her about this yet, but I’d like to recommend the following high-level path to launching Data Governance in an organization. This is very high level (read: quick & dirty), so you’ll need to take time and break these steps down into discrete tasks.

1. Start a Data Initiative to fix a few specific problems
Before the words ‘data governance’ are ever uttered, start an initiative to fix a few problems that span the enterprise. Make sure these are problems that bother people so that you’ll get buy-in. As part of this initiative, build a business team that will work on the problems (they’ll later become your Data Stewardship Council).
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There really is something to be said about dividing up your council to work on separate issues and then reconvening to discuss and approve the results. I’ve used this technique recently for some of the issues on our tracking sheet that ‘just won’t go away’. You probably have these too… whether they be important but nagging issues with the legacy systems or a business unit who just won’t respond so you can close something out. In any case, over time, these outstanding issues will multiply and the best method I’ve found it so assign them out to your stewards to have them worked on. I’ve also found that there are a few keys to success when doing this.
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It is important that your Data Governance program stay visible throughout the organization. This means getting out there and doing presentations, getting your talking points in whenever the opportunity presents itself, volunteering to speak at all-hands meetings and business team meetings, etc. A few posts back I talked about the much needed ‘Elevator Speech‘ and I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have those ready at a moments notice. Additionally though, you’ll need talking points and presentations that last 15-30 minutes and longer for meetings with other IT and Business units, high level executive presentation, mid-level business teams, and any other audience where Data Governance can bring value.
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Recurring meetings are a must. If you are a new program, once a week, no questions asked. If you’ve got the ball rolling, everyone is participating and knows their role, every other week works nicely. But no matter what, make sure there is an understanding among your team that they must attend these meetings.

Make it easy on yourself by holding the meeting at the same time of day in the same location. You could have it every Thursday from 10-11AM, or every other Wednesday at 9:30… whatever works best for you. The key here is that you need to make sure people are attending regularly. A really good tip is to… Continue reading →

Sorry for the long delay in posts. Its been quite busy the past month or so and I haven’t been able to get on here as much as I’d like. But, rest assured, I’ll be posting more often so check back frequently!

I just returned from the Data Governance Conference in San Francisco, CA. It was a great conference with many great speakers, both consultants and practitioners. One of the keynotes was from Larry English, the man for Data Quality. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend checking out his book: Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality: Methods for Reducing Costs and Increasing Profits. His presentation was both funny and well thought out; appropriately enough, he was the keynote speaker Wednesday evening.
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Your program kick-off meeting will set the tone for the next 6-12 months, so you want it to be just right. As such, be very planned and methodical in what you do and don’t decide to talk about.

Do start by talking about Data Governance from a high level. Get everyone ‘level-set’… remember, your stewards and other attendees haven’t been eating, breathing, and dreaming DG for the last few months/years. Give everyone a good foundation in what Data Governance is.
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1. Stir up a little controversy or bring up a hot-topic (borrowed from Bonnie O’Neil - her new book is a must have for anyone involved in Data Governance)
2. Bring in the highest level person you can to a meeting to address the group
3. Ask for direction on where the group should be headed, be candid
4. Have 1-on-1 meetings and get their honest thoughts on the group
5. Solve something or get involved with the latest corporate initiative
6. Ask yourself, “Why the heck is the council getting stagnant?” Then answer the question. Then act upon it.

This can be a tough one, and there is no one guaranteed way to succeed at this, but there are a number of techniques you can use that will help.

Getting Executive Buy-in

1. Get a quick win
2. Fix a Pain point
3. Demonstrate the value using metrics (ie. if this field were 88% accurate instead of 87% accurate, when used in a marketing campaign we could expect a return $315,000 more in sales)

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Yesterday I posted about building the stewardship council and breezed through the bit about selecting the lead steward. I want to give some more information about what was successful for me…

I didn’t look for a chief steward until we had executive support. I think it is very important that you ensure your formal program has executive support, otherwise it probably isn’t going to go very far. So, once you have executive support, you can start to think about your program structure. Most programs have a chief data steward, namely they act as the head of the data stewardship council.

Landing an effective chief steward can be a bit daunting, they must be a leader, be recognized by upper management, be respected by their peers, and be visible to the workforce. Some organizations choose to put the stewardship council together first, and then have them elect a chief steward. My philosophy is to do the opposite, because a good chief steward can put a good council together. Continue reading →