By Carol Newcomb, Senior Consultant
Somewhere along the way to understanding the whole data governance thing, someone forgot to mention that data management really is central. Did I say Mention? I really meant Emphasize. Urgently Emphasize. Data management processes are critical to the establishment and maintenance of a data governance program.
The thing is, data governance is quite impossible without a fundamental data management process that provides tactical direction. For example, if you have a bunch of people running around acting as data stewards, asking people questions about metadata, source systems, definitions, use of data and implications of sharing it, what happens when they have to write a policy? And when data stewards meet as a group, how can they describe the magnitude of issues to discuss with their users? How do issues get prioritized? How can anybody decide who is accountable if due diligence hasn’t been paid to the fundamental source data issues, and how can decisions about governance enforcement be made?
Data governance should never be undertaken as a project. It is a long term program that needs to start with a foothold in core data problems, like the inability to use or share data. To get that foothold, stewards need to identify data quality and consistency issues that resonate with end-users. Find some tangible pain. This requires a sound set of data quality profiling activities to prove where conflicts or inconsistencies are most problematic, and a quantifiable statement of what the impact is. The problem needs to be quantifiable to get people’s attention, as well as to compare one set of problems against another. The data management program should have the capacity to routinely analyze and reveal data quality issues,and keep bringing them back to end-users to build a sense of urgency towards taking restorative and preventive action.
Data governance is all about People, Processes, Decision Rights and Controls. But before you can even begin, you will need to have identified the problems through hardcore data management practices. This involves understanding the data architecture, examining privacy and compliance mandates around data visibility and sharing, exploring metadata definitions and having the ability to make changes through sound data administration practices. Without these systems and roles in place, data governance is just a hollow shell.
photo by limaoscarjuliet (via Flickr)
Carol
Newcomb is a Senior Consultant with Baseline Consulting. She
specializes in developing BI and data governance programs to drive
competitive advantage and fact-based decision making. Carol has
consulted for a variety of health care organizations, including Rush
Health Associates, Kaiser Permanente, OSF Healthcare, the Blue Cross
Blue Shield Association and more. While working at the Joint Commission
and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, she designed and conducted
scientific research projects and contributed to statistical analyses.
Comments