Winning strategies for Data Governance maturity

To progress to a future state of mature Data Governance and analytical capability, decision-makers should focus on starting with the integration of the data across an entire enterprise.

A Data Governance program will be critical to support the continued growth of an organization. Success will lead to developing the experience and data foundation that future initiatives can build upon, furthering its competitive advantage.

A top priority for an organization should be to increase the organization's enterprise data management capabilities. They can reasonably expect to develop an adequate competency level very quickly and progress to more mature levels over an 18-24-month period by reorganizing the people and integrating a strategic plan that consists of new processes, procedures, and technology. The organization will need to make a conscious decision to manage data holistically with repeatable processes and protocols, moving away from relying entirely upon individuals or employees with little or no corporate roles or visibility.

For a successful Data Governance initiative to take place, these components must be part of a strong foundation of the process. However, we don't necessarily call out Data Governance as part of the delivery framework due to organizations' past failures with these initiatives. Instead, we use business strategy and objectives to align data initiatives with Data Governance best practices as part of the process. Another reason for not calling out Data Governance is that many executives see things like Data Governance as an unnecessary cost that doesn't move the top line for them. Integration as part of a strategic initiative aligned with the organization's goals is the best of both worlds for leadership.

As we deliver tangible results that add value to the organization, we start to introduce these terms as part of the road map to demonstrate how Data Governance has supported these data initiatives' success and excellence and how it drives the total cost of ownership moving forward, enabling these solutions and business processes to scale.

With Data Governance as part of the process, we deliver projects in a leveraging agile approach that include the following:

• A lean project in which we work on specific objectives and plans that need to be completed in the timeframe of weeks (not months) and executed in a repeatable, reusable, and sustainable way
• Focusing on the awareness of data and how several data initiatives and processes that produce quick wins to further build governance efforts and support
• Showcasing how our project's beneficial attributes and rewards will remain long after the project’s execution and completion

At Data Ideology, Data Governance is integrated as part of our approach. Our teams of business and IT experts have helped organizations of all sizes and across various industries with Data Governance initiatives. We work to engage the businesses and gain support from executive leadership and those responsible for decision making and operations; this allows us to deliver value and effectiveness by integrating Data Governance into any data related process or policy.