What Says The Health Of Your Data? Do You Have a Trusted, Governed Data Environment?
We can all agree we're entering into a new marketplace after this Covid19 Pandemic. There's no doubt what you do with your data will set you apart in an unthinkable way in the current digital age. The quality of the data in your ecosystem will either set you up or let you down as we roll into the new market dynamic.
This week I'll like to deepen our conversation on the new business paradigm unfolding based on the current market trend for a competitive edge.
As I called out last week, Data is at the center stage as the world leans on it for insight to predict and curtail the current COVID-19 pandemic.
With that said, can you imagine if the data at play for our predictions, modeling, diagnostics, and treatment is of poor and substandard quality? Can you imagine if what we're left with in our desperation to stop the pandemic is simply untrusted, unexplainable, and noisy data with a lot of holes and gaps for consumption and meaningful insight?
Can you imagine what and where that would lead us? We'll definitely all be sitting at the edge of our seats waiting for some magical miracle to be whipped out of some untrusted and badly flawed data. The result will be evident as it won't lead us very far and our problems will continue to stare at us in the face.
The reality is that this very same truth holds for every organization going ahead with their innovative ideas to compete in the current global market with poor quality data.
Creating a trusted data environment is no longer an option for those still sitting on the fence with their Data Governance adoption.
The make or break of your competitive edge will not be defined in the fanciness of your tools and technology. it will not be defined by the fact that you've launched all cool initiatives and are heavily vested in one machine learning or analytical endeavor or the other.
We're stepping into a fiercely competitive market as we roll into the aftermath of this COVID-19 Pandemic.
Every organization will have to come to play with their best and brightest competitive edge. The reality as I said is that some will sink and some will rise. We'll see some giant organizations fall and some we've never heard of will emerge.
Simply put, the health of your data will 'Drive You North' or 'Drive You South'.
The question for you here is 'Do You Have a Trusted, Governed Data Environment'?
If there's any doubt in your understanding of what a Governed Data environment looks like. Let me try painting some colors around this:
✔ You have built a community of stewardship around your data value chain for needed due diligence of responsibilities and care around your data asset.
✔ You have defined solid roles and responsibilities that would help drive your data governance adoption to success in your organization
✔ You have trained, equipped, and empowered all of your data citizens to treat the enterprise data as an asset in their assigned roles and responsibilities to the enterprise data.
✔ You have established Ownership to every organization data to set the tone for accountability and define guardrails of creating, engaging, and consuming the enterprise data.
✔ You have defined what each data means to your organization in a consistent way across the enterprise.
✔ You have documented and made these definitions accessible and available to all as a guide to engage and use consistently across the enterprise.
✔ You have defined what good and acceptable Data Quality means to your enterprise and you have called out your threshold of tolerance.
✔ You have built stewardship to manage and monitor to the defined quality standards.
✔ You have established standards for Tracking and Managing Data quality issues and you're swiftly assigning ownership and permanent remediations to the root cause of your data quality issues.
✔ You have built change management around the introduction and updates of every Data, associated Quality Rules, and Metadata around your ecosystem.
In a nutshell, you have set all the above in motion to kick off the cultural transformation of Data Governance and you're monitoring the same consistently.
If there's any gray area in any of the above checklist, you're simply not yet in a Trusted Data environment. Meaning, your data asset is somewhat questionable and probably not business ready to help you win the current race.
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is going to usher in a new wave of business repositioning. We're going to start seeing a new way of doing business as every organization starts to joggle for position with their offering. The truth of the matter is that some will sink and some will rise. Data is going to play a pivotal role in determining those who rise and those who fall. Organizations that have managed to tap into the power of their data asset with intentional governance will have a superior edge over those still sitting on the fence with their governance adoption.
The good news, however, is that you still have a good opportunity to assess where you are and recalibrate your strategy if you're one of the late starters or if you're simply struggling to operationalize an effective Data Governance.
You still have a good opportunity to pivot and reprioritize your intentions around this. You have a decision to make by drawing from the lessons learned during this pandemic and the way data is taking center stage for the needed insight.
In Summary, your investment in creating a trusted, business-ready, governed data environment will ultimately set the tone for your success as we roll into the new competitive market after this pandemic.
For more detail and practical help to 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.