Changing the Data Governance Narrative

Data Governance – isn’t that just the Data police?

For some, Data Governance is lots of control, process and frameworks, for others, its data quality and data literacy. Data Governance is indeed about all those items, and more.

It sometimes becomes clear talking to business leaders that Data Governance means different things to them, depending on a number of factors, and actually can even have some very negative connotations. This problem occurs particularly when implementation attempts fail or when organisations employ older methods of governance. Often, people simply mistake it for other types of governance.

These points alone are enough to add confusion to any conversation – add in layers of Data Governance implementations, roles and responsibilities, best practice publishers, and framework builders/suggesters, it becomes very clear that at best we have acronym soup, at worse, a complete misunderstanding of what data governance is for, and how it can be of benefit. So why aren’t we simplifying this?

Many years ago, the idea of “Data Excellence” landed with me (I can’t remember where from). This was a great starting point to building a new way of talking about data governance, so I sat and had a think and came up with some new names for some of the pieces of Data Governance. This is so that when we’re talking about it, people understand, but also, to help generate some excitement about it, and give it some real meaning to those who aren’t involved in it. I don’t believe for one moment that these are unique, but they simply make more sense to me when communicating.

Data Governance becomes Data Excellence

As corny and cheesy as it may sound, it actually just sounds a bit more “with it” to me (I’m sure my kids would cringe over this statement), we want to be excellent at things, we want excellent data, so isn’t this data excellence?

Data Owners become Data Trustees

Why? Because they don’t really own the data. Sure the CFO needs the finance data, and has a deep vested interest in it, but does it belong to them? Or do they look after it whilst they are in the business? Then passing on that baton to someone who replaces them should they win the lottery. Whilst the concept of data owners does work, I think that trusteeship is a much better premise for this type of role.

Data Stewards become Data Champions

This change makes the most sense to me. Ask your average person on the street, and how many will know what a steward is and what their role is? I believe the term originates from maritime language (though I might be mistaken) and denotes caring for someone else’s property. However, data stewardship encompasses much more; it requires business leaders to actively champion a range of responsibilities throughout the organisation rather than merely caring for the data.

Data Custodians become Data Caretakers

Another Corny one, but bear with me – this is about setting down the responsibility more carefully, and letting the custodian know where their skills are needed.

These are just examples of some of the roles. There are a many in Data Governance, and actually the specific responsibilities differ between sector, business and even implementation.

I could go on more, but I can’t give away all the ingredients to the secret sauce now, can I?

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