Highlighting Data Stewardship as the ‘Heartbeat’ of Effective Data Governance
'Data is an asset' - you've heard that statement a lot lately, right?
If so, you've no doubt reflected on where your organization sits on the journey to harness the limitless potential of its own ‘Data Assets'; either for regulatory compliance (to stay out of trouble) or for operational efficiency and market growth.
You know that Data Governance plays a key role in all of this - but how is your organization approaching it?
As a speaker, I hear at events from many attendees who confess that their Data Governance initiative is being rolled out as a one-off initiative without a strong framework to meet the competing demands for trusted, business ready data.
Most organizations deploying Data Governance today are in denial that the need for governance around data is here to stay; requiring a cultural shift and intentional adoption into an organization’s cultural DNA.
In short, Data Governance needs to become 'Business-as-Usual', not a project.
I can personally attest to this urgency around a ‘data-driven’ culture based on the challenges we’ve faced over the past decade in heavily regulated financial sectors.
Intense regulatory scrutiny is here to stay as there will be more and more demand for increased transparency as more regulations and oversights will continue to be rolled out to keep us honest and continue to protect our consumers interest.
Understanding this paradigm shift coupled with market demands from our customers and our appetite for revenue growth and insightful analytics for new business opportunities have not made the journey of standing up Data Governance ‘a walk in the park’ in recent years.
This demand has positioned most organizations into adopting ‘Reactive Data Governance’, which clearly, is not sustainable (or desirable).
Most organizations have ended up kicking off multiple governance initiatives to solve similar problems. In a lot of cases, these organizations could have saved a lot of time, money and resource, if an integrated view of adopting governance more as an holistic, strategic enterprise initiative is positioned.
I think it’s safe to say the report cards of most governance initiatives illustrate a gap in understanding of how to kickstart and deploy successful governance around data.
Literacy around effective deployment of Data Governance is still very low as most organizations have gone through multiple iterations of ‘epileptic’ stop-and-go Governance whilst others have simply 'cherry-picked' what they think governance is all about, albeit with a narrowly focused adoption.
Data Governance: 'Reset Button' Required
I think we need to push the reset button to rightfully position governance for success in our organizations.
That all sounds great in a vision statement, but how do we actually deliver it on the ground?
Here are two practical steps to success...
STEP 1: Reset Your Foundational Understanding Of Data Governance
You know the question is no longer if your organization will decide to adopt data governance but when.
You need to adopt Data Governance as part of an operational strategy so that you can continue to be relevant and remain competitive in your space.
You therefore need to reset your messaging around these key foundational building blocks:
1. Cultural Transformation: Governance around data is a cultural transformation. The goal is to create a natural DNA for all data citizens to see data as the most important asset in the organization, help foster ethical production, use and care around it to realize 'trusted, business-ready' data. It must be approached with an intentional mindset of this statement as the end in mind. It’s a multi-year effort and drivers must set the right expectation that this is a journey and not a project with a start and end date.
2. Strategic Adoption: Be strategic in your adoption and a good way of doing this is to rightfully align governance with your organization goals & objectives. It should be positioned as an accelerator to get you where you want to be.
3. Data Management Advocacy: Engage and appoint the right people with Data Management advocacy and skillset in their DNA to champion your governance initiative. They will make or break your success story.
4. Executive Education Program: Educate your senior management with the right message of what true governance means and get their executive buy-in and funding before racing into execution.
5. Stewardship at the Core: Position Stewardship as the heartbeat of your adoption. They will help build up your data community with allies for success. They’ll help ‘Communitize’ your data for the cumulative responsibility of all Data Citizens.
Irrespective of where you are as an organization today in this journey, I believe it’s worth evaluating and assessing how you’re tracking your ‘Data Governance’ adoption efforts (if you’ve started one) or how you plan to rightfully initiate one, initiate it right and build maturity over time.
You still have a great opportunity to pivot your strategy of adoption if you started in the wrong place - take this opportunity to reset your foundation.
STEP 2: Position Stewardship as your Catalyst for Success
I believe Stewardship through cumulative responsibilities around an organization’s data asset is the key to winning big in any Data Governance adoption effort. Hence, we need to highlight Data Stewardship as simply the heartbeat of a successful Data Governance adoption.
Stewardship helps activate governance around a defined framework and agreed standards of execution in alignment with the organization goal. Appointing and engaging a Stewardship Lead and the associated drivers is pivotal to a Successful Data Governance execution.
Organizations need to rightfully understand this from the onset.
They need to position, equip and empower their Stewardship team to propel and define their governance efforts.
In a nutshell, Stewardship is the heartbeat of Data Governance.
It is the true activator of governance.
Governance defines the vision and Stewardship sets the 'altitude' for your success.
Understanding this role and its success relies heavily on previously highlighted foundational parameters in this write-up. Stewardship builds community around data and make every data citizen a steward of the data they engage in their existing role(as a producer or a consumer) and an active player in the data maturity journey. Stewardship engages data citizens as champions & catalysts for governance success.
Next Steps
To find out more about how to set your Data Governance initiative on the path for success, call us using the link below to discuss how we can help you with DatOculi’s Stewardship Standard of Cumulative Responsibilities:
Book a call with Lara Gureje: https://calendly.com/lara-gureje