The Pivotal Role of Data Ownership In A Data Governance Adoption Journey
Stepping up our sharing around Data Stewardship this week by unpacking some of the fog around Data Ownership.
Establishing Ownership around our enterprise data is the number one milestone for measuring Governance around our enterprise data. I've received so many questions around this important execution goal for governance and will like to share some of my experience on this over the years and paint some colors around what success looks like in establishing ownership around your data asset.
Ownership role in Stewardship around your enterprise data helps accelerate achieving the WHY of Data Governance.
To this effect, it is worth reminding ourselves about the 'why' of Data Governance as we journey through its adoption and activation.
We must remember the plight of Data Governance is to instill behavioral change in our organization - to foster a cleaner, ethical culture of creating, engaging and using the enterprise data; defining and promoting the application of due diligence and standards of care to our data asset to optimize usability and ensure needed trust for our day to day data consumption.
To this effect, the number one success criteria for a governed data environment is that ownership around data must be established.
Why Data Ownership?
Data Ownership is needed as a formalized role to establish accountability and responsibility for the management of data across its lineage from creation to consumption. It is an effective way for an organization to ensure that the right authorities are defining use, determining quality standards, and remediating data issues in a consistent way across the enterprise.
Ownership in this sense must not be confused with possession of Data assets. We all know the enterprise ultimately owns the data. However, in this respect, ownership around data is established to achieve behavioral ethics and discipline around data assets to achieve desired cultural transformation around enterprise data. The ethics and guardrails of data must be owned and assigned to an individual. Data owners should be appointed as the authoritative voice for defining the guardrails of creating and defining the purpose of use for the data they own.
Who are Data Owners?
As I've often called out, Data Owners are key actors in operationalizing Data Governance with Stewardship. They are part of the Stewardship efforts and integral to actualizing effective governance around an enterprise data asset. This is not a fulltime role, but rather an appointed role earned by reputation and intimacy with the purpose and value of the data. Ownership of data is a key responsibility and assigned individuals carry the responsibility of defining the overall health of the data they own.
Owners are typically in middle management and have a team working with them to protect the interest of the assigned data in their perimeter. They work very closely with their Data Stewards and provide needed guidance and representation around their data.
The pivotal role of Data Owners in the Stewardship around an enterprise data asset cannot be overemphasized. Data owners set the tone for quality and guardrails around their owned data and the data in their perimeter. They define the nomenclature of usage and engagement as the authoritative voice of required standards of due diligence around their data.
The appointment of individuals to this crucial role must be well-vetted and ratified by all stakeholders. The reputation and credibility of individuals appointed as owners of your enterprise data will define the pace of your Data Governance adoption journey and the overall Data Maturity of your enterprise. These individuals must have a great depth of understanding around the policies, procedures, and usage of the data they own at a superior level. These individuals must have been playing the same role in an informal way around the data before the appointment. Formalizing and recognizing these individuals to their role as Data Owners will help set the tone for activating an effective Data Governance in your enterprise. I shared some tips on what you should be looking for in your appointment of individuals to ownership roles in my article: DNA of A Data Stewardship Team
In a nutshell, Data Owners are typically:
Accountable for defining the term, usage and quality measures of owned data at the point of creation or source of record (SOR).
Responsible for enforcing adherence of the same rules to the term, definition, and quality measures at points of distribution and through the lifecycle for an owned data element(s) beyond SOR.
Responsible for approving and driving the resolution of functional data quality issues related to owned data.
This role must however not be confused with the role of a 'Process Owner'- Another actor in the stewardship team, with slightly different roles and responsibilities at a different point in time along the data journey.
It is therefore worth calling out that most organizations typically have just Data Owners. However, in a large and more complex organization where a data journey across the value chain might involve several hubs with the added complexity of enrichment and aggregation to the originating data, it is highly recommended to introduce a different ownership role called 'Process Owner'. The process ownership is often needed where additional input to the data along its journey changes the outlook value of the data. Process Owners along a data value chain must work very closely with the Data Owner to ensure the integrity of the original data as defined at authoring is not compromised in their enrichment and aggregation.
To avoid this, It is highly recommended that such enrichment that changes the outlook of data along its value chain be redefined with new terms and definitions for the newly established attribute as part of your Metadata development effort. Ownership at this point should be owned by the aggregator and defined accordingly.
The role of a Data Owner and a Process Owner is very similar but slightly different. Data Owners own the data content while Process owners own their redefined process or added input to the data. Below is a quick snapshot of the major differences between a Data Owner and a Process owner.
In Summary, it is very important for your organization to establish ownership around its data value chain. Not only at the point of origination, but throughout the data lifecycle to make sure accountability is ensured and instilled at every junction.
For more detail and to help activate effective Data Governance & Stewardship around your data value chain. Book a Free Call with me to discuss your challenges and we can explore simple strategies to actualize your governance success.