Approaching data governance from a business perspective

Are you are having another meeting with your business clients about data governance and it is not going particularly well?

I have a suggestion for you. Change the conversation.

Businesses do not use data. I know that sounds extreme, but it is a point that bears repetition. Businesses do not use data, they use information.

The distinction between those two is both simple and elusive. One is all about form and lineage, and the other is about meaning and context.

Sure, you can get a bunch of stakeholders together in a room and talk governance and meta data and data quality for hours. I can pretty much guarantee most won’t leave with any confidence and their buy-in will be tepid at best – and that is a problem.

By some estimates, governance projects fail 90 percent of the time. That statistic has not changed much over the years so clearly current approaches are not working.

I have sat through data-related meetings and watched business sponsors roll their eyes and work their phones because they were not engaged. I have watched them leave these meetings unenthused, confused and dispirited.

As a person that wants to bring value to a conversation, I have struggled with this. I was in the middle of a data conference when the realization hit me: When we talk to business about data we are simultaneously having two different conversations because they are talking about information. The wrong conversation is driving the agenda. This is why our projects are in peril. In science, if we want to change the results of an experiment we have to change the inputs.

In the case of getting the business to buy in and engage in this process there are two variables – the audience and the content of the conversation. I suggest we change both.

First let’s address content. Governance is about who and how. That is not a context at the forefront of most business discussions. Business is about measurable outcomes. Data may very well be an asset, but all business is predicated upon using assets to generate return. In that very few businesses are engaged in the selling of data, returns from governance are not clearly tangible.

That being said, business does understand the impact of good governance when it is expressed in measurable business outcomes.