Data Governance Litmus Test: Cataloging of the Data Issues

This is a eighth blog entry in a blog series highlighting the criticality and the importance of executive sponsorship for data governance initiatives. So far I have explored step-by-step approach of how one can go about developing the case for data governance by connecting initiatives under data governance umbrella with business strategy and outcomes.

In last post we explored how assessing data quality, reliability and timeliness will help towards establishing a baseline around data issues within the organization.

As the data governance teams are exploring data, policies and procedures around handling data, it is important to catalog key findings in a way such that key stakeholders can clearly understand the impact and the issues on hand. Clearly documenting data quality issues, policy issues and any other systemic issues associated with the specific business process (which has the highest influence on strategy outcomes) is very important for ultimately gaining executive sponsorship for initiatives which strive to fix those issues.

Attached is a sample example which demonstrates how findings could be summarized. If you’re using repositories or tools to capture some of this metadata I would highly recommend that you take the effort to summarize those findings in easy to understand fashion. This will help in articulating how data management issues are impacting overall business and in specific some of the key goals which organization is trying to manage.

Key here is clarity, simplicity and relevance. Providing some of the data/metrics around how current are the data management issues will help establishes credibility of your findings (in many instances these metrics may not be readily available, work with your counterparts from the business side and capture these metrics as a part of your discovery process). Always remember that your findings are only as good as the understanding of those findings and its impact by stakeholders in your organization. That is why it is important to make sure that you are presenting the findings in a simple yet impactful form.

You are three fourth of the way in getting executive buy-in, you have done your homework; identified the data management related issues; and presented your findings and the impact of those findings on key performance indicators. You are yet to have a formal agreement/shake hand with stakeholders around common understanding about the impact and possible course of action. In next blog posts, I will discuss how to go about reaching this agreement, and what additional information it might take to get to that point.

In the meantime, feel free to share your presentations/ideas or thoughts on how you explained your findings to key stakeholders in support of ongoing data governance investments.

Previous Relevant Posts:

Litmus Test for Data Governance Initiatives: What do you need to do to garner executive sponsorship?

Data Governance Litmus Test: Know thy KPIs

Data Governance Litmus Test: Know goals behind KPIs

Data Governance Litmus Test: How and who is putting together metrics/KPIs for executives?

Data Governance Litmus Test: Do You Have Access to the Artifacts Used by Executives?

Data Governance Litmus Test: Systems, Processes and Data Behind the KPIs and Goals

Data Governance Litmus Test: Quality, Reliability and Timeliness of the Data

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