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Stop the Chaos
Managing data as a business asset.
by Larissa T. Moss
After a decade of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and two decades into data warehousing, many business executives are still frustrated over their inability to trust their company’s data. They have spent millions on new technologies, only to find that the state of their data assets is deteriorating and losing value rather than improving.
One big reason for this continuing data erosion is that companies do not manage their data as a business asset.
In order to do that, they need an enterprise-wide data governance program, which includes a set of policies, processes and resources to standardize data, control data redundancy and share a single view of the business across the organization. A critical key to this effort is to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of IT and business.
Enforcing Data Governance
Implementing a data governance program requires a new mental model and some organizational changes.
Data governance cannot be assigned solely to one specialized group; it requires collaboration between business people and technicians. For instance, the business side must participate in the roles of data owners and stewards. The more technical
data administration is performed by a specialized team called the enterprise information management (EIM) group, which is typically staffed by an administrator, enterprise data modeler, metadata administrator and data quality analyst. Additionally, data custodians in IT, such as developers and database professionals, have the ultimate responsibility for data integrity.
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Three levels of data governance responsibilities must be implemented for an organization to be most effective:
- Strategic layer. Business executives should provide collective sponsorship for the data governance program by assigning data owners, giving them the authority to set policy for the data assets in the organization and communicating their authority through all layers of management. The owners in turn will assign stewards in their business units and make them accountable for the quality and integrity of the data. People in the strategic layer can also be considered as the data governance council.
- Tactical layer. Data stewards must collaborate with the administrator, enterprise data modeler, metadata administrator and data quality analyst from the EIM group in creating the enterprise data model, managing the metadata, administering the lexicons, correcting dirty data and so on. This level contains the active work force of a data governance program.
- Operational layer. Custodians execute data policies and rules at the operational layer. Database architects and administrators implement policies and rules in their database definitions and processes. Developers and other technicians embed the policies and rules in their programs when they create, modify, move, copy or delete data. It is also their responsibility to communicate and escalate any discovered data discrepancies to the stewards and EIM staff.
Data Has Value
When planning to institute a data governance program, senior executives must accept that data has business value and that it should be managed like any other business asset. They must be willing to sponsor and fund a data governance organization and assign owners and stewards from both the business and IT sides of the organization.
Success will require new practices, disciplines, methods, applications, infrastructure, tools and techniques, roles and responsibilities, and policies and procedures.
Implementing these changes must be systemic and holistic, not isolated and sporadic. To avoid data chaos, executive leadership must be dedicated to business integration.
Larissa T. Moss, president of Method Focus Inc., has 30 years of IT experience with a focus on data warehousing and data management.
Sid Adelman of Sid Adelman and Associates contributed to this article.