How Much Is The Lack of ‘Communitized Data Stewardship' Costing You?
Wanted to follow up on our recent conversation highlighting the art of building a community of stewardship around our data value chains.
We meticulously stepped through some few tips on building winning foundations for our Data Governance adoption in my recent weeklong article. Here's a link to Day 5 of the series Data Community Formation - Day5
The essence of this painstaking exercise and the inherent value in community formation around the data value chain can never be overemphasized. As I called out in all my sharing that success is truly achieved in Governance when we anchor our activation and adoption around 'communitized stewardship'.
I know it's easier to get lost on where and how to start your Data Governance journey with so many piecemeal narratives failing to address Data Governance as a holistic discipline requiring a comprehensive blueprint of execution roadmap at the onset of the adoption journey. Hence my article Governance Checklist For Success
To this effect, this week, I'll like for us to reflect on our takeaway from the week-long series over a week ago and check-in to ask if your organization is rightfully building Communities of Stewardship around your Data Value Chain as part of your Data Governance adoption.
If not, I'll like for you to evaluate the cost of this impact. Simply put – Do you know how much the lack of 'communitized stewardship' around your enterprise data asset is costing you?
Let us try and paint the picture of the absence of true stewardship around your data value chain.
The absence of governance by stewardship is a daily uphill battle for a lot of organizations. A lot of organizations spend millions of dollars each year fixing data quality issues that are never going away until the underlining issues and the lack of governance adoption around them are addressed.
I'm sure a lot of us can relate to this as there are lots of organizations simply leaving, breathing the costly impact of an ungoverned, un-sustainable and untrusted data environment. The reality of the issues in these organizations is due to a combination of the following:
· Quality issues are introduced to data largely at the entry point and upstream of data creation or authoring.
· Quality issues compounded during data movement from one hub to another where there is a lack of controls and accountability between data movement.
· Lack of common taxonomy around enterprise data causes undefined usage of data. Leading to misuse of the same data across the enterprise by different consumers.
· Lack of ownership around enterprise data.
· Poor guardrails and quality rules definitions.
· Weakness in issues management and resolutions around data
· Poor Change Management around key enterprise data.
The reality of some of these highlighted pains often get blurred out by the amount of technology and 'quick fix' tools thrown at us promising to save the day and help governed the ungoverned; trust the untrusted, sustain the un-sustained data in our ecosystems.
Whilst it's very important for us to have a huge appreciation for the engagement of tools and technology in our Data Governance Adoption Journey. We must never mask the quality issues in our data with temporal fixes from our toolsets.
Of course, we all know the best way to avoid data-quality issues and their costly effects are to prevent them from re-occurring. Yes, this is often easier said than done. But we cannot choose to ignore addressing our data quality issues simply because, we have workaround quick fixes and tools helping us solve for the immediate.
Ignoring your data quality issues by failing to address its root cause and remediation plans to prevent future occurrence is like leaving money on the table. You will never be able to realize the full potentials of your data asset without addressing this fundamental issue.
I'll, however, like to rightfully highlight the role and position of tools & technology in our data adoption journey.
So, what is the role of tools & technology in Data Governance Adoption?
We need Tools to accelerate our Data Governance Activation – We need to engage tools for ownership documentation; Lineage mapping, Metadata Documentations – Glossaries/Dictionaries; Data Quality Monitoring; Issues Management & Tracking; Change Management and Workflow automation. Yes, we need tools to help accelerate our deliveries.
What tools & technologies are not?
Tools & Technologies don't govern data. They are your 'vehicle' and your enabler for achieving your goals and objectives around your data pains at an accelerated pace. But, you need a community of people, aka stewardship to drive your governance execution. Equipping and empowering them with the right tools and technologies will help you achieve your governance adoption.
Tools won't solve your data quality issues. Most of your quality issues are cultural issues requiring cultural transformation of engaging data. 'Garbage in, Garbage out’. Quality issues and leakages in your data value chain are introduced where there is a lack of stewardship of due diligence. Tools will help clean and bandage your issues for your immediate and temporal needs. The root cause of your quality issues may never be addressed and that's not what Data Governance is about.
Data Governance is about changing the way your enterprise Data Citizens engages your most valuable asset. Introducing ethics and formalized due diligence with roles & responsibilities defined and executed around your data value chain.
Every organization must assess the cost of its ungoverned data environment. Building a lasting and sustainable community of stewardship around your data value chain ought to be on top of your priority. Operationalizing your Data Governance adoption with 'communitized stewardship' will increase your operational efficiency and address your root cause quality issues. This will position you to rightfully engage your data asset and optimize your organization's overall strategic goals.
In a nutshell, the value of building a community of stewardship around your data value chains is simply limitless. Here are a few 'quick-wins' you'll start realizing once you position community of stewardship around your data value chains:
· Data Aggregation around your data will be easier – Need consistent data definition and lineage to achieve.
· It will help ease the consolidate data across Silos' definition of data use –Need consistent data definition across processes, products, systems, and business units.
· It will help establish clear Data Ownership – Need to establish ownership across products and accounts (e.g. customer data)
· Data suppliers will understand all demands on the data they're producing– Need to streamline data requirements from data Consumers and facilitate improved communication for changes impacting data downstream
· It will help facilitate Correct and Complete Sourcing of Data across the enterprise data domains - Need authoritative sources
· It will facilitate Standardized Architecture and Structure - Need a disciplined architecture approach with embedded governance across data lineage
For more detail and help kicking off Stewardship Community Formation around your Data value chain. Book a Free Call with me to discuss your challenges and we can explore simple strategies for actualizing your governance success.