This is a fourth blog entry in a series of blog entries highlighting how to go about securing executive sponsorship for data governance initiatives. In previous posts, I have highlighted the need for understanding specific KPIs/metrics which executives track, and tangible goals which are being set against those KPIs.
Almost always, there is either individual or group of individuals who work tirelessly on producing these necessary reports with KPIs/metrics for executives. Many a times these individuals have clear and precise understanding of how these metrics/KPIs are calculated, what data iss
ues, if any, exists in underlying data which supports these metrics.
It is worthwhile to spend time with these groups of people to get a leg up on an understanding of metrics/KPI definitions, knowledge around data issues (data quality, consistency, system of record). The process of engaging these individuals will also help in winning confidence of the people who know the actual details around KPI/metrics, processes associated with calculating and reporting on these metrics. These individuals will likely to be part of your data governance team and are crucial players in winning the vote of confidence from executives as it relates to the value data governance initiatives create.
In one of my engagements with a B2 B customer, executive management had the goal of improving business with existing customers. Hence executive management wanted to track Net new versus Repeat business. Initially sales operations team had no way of reporting on this KPI, so in the early days they reported using statistical sampling. Ultimately, they created a field in their CRM system to capture new or repeat business on their opportunity data. This field was used for doing new versus repeat business KPI reporting. Unfortunately, this field was always entered manually by a sales rep while creating opportunity record. While sales operation team knew that this is not entirely accurate, they had no way of getting around it.
In my early discussions with sales operations team, when I came to know about this, I did a quick assessment for a quarter worth of data. After doing basic de-duping and some cleansing I compared my numbers versus their numbers and there was a significant difference between both of our numbers. This really helped me get sales operations team on board with data cleansing and ultimately data governance around opportunity, customers and prospects data. This discussion/interaction also helped us clearly define what business should be considered Net new and Repeat business.
Obviously, as one goes through this process of collecting information around metrics, underlying data and the process by which these numbers are crunched, it helps to have proper tools and technology in place to capture this knowledge. For example
a) Capturing definition of metrics
b) Capturing metadata around data sources
c) Lineage, actual calculations behind metrics etc.
This process of capturing definitions, metadata, lineage etc. will help in getting high level visibility of the scope of things to come. Metadata and lineage can be used to identify business processes and systems which are impacting KPIs.
In summary, this process of finding people behind the operations of putting together KPIs helps in identifying subject matter experts who can give you clear and high-value pointers around “areas” which data governance initiatives need to focus early on in the process. This process will ultimately help you in recruiting people with right skill set and knowledge in your cross functional data governance team.
Previous posts on this or related topics:
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
Suggested next posts:
Data Governance Litmus Test: Do You Have Access to the Artifacts Used by Executives?
Business Intelligence: Process, People and Products 