Lightweight Data Governance

Last week I read a great article from First Spike on the upcoming demand for Data Governance work. The author referenced several sources who predicted a sharp rise in demand for Data Governance. One even predicted that it will be a regulatory requirement. I followed up with Mark Cowan from First Spike last week to discuss our definitions of Data Governance.

Mark was very interested in what a Data Governance program looked like at an Internet company. His point was that it’s more typical to see Data Governance in the Health Care and Financial Services industries. That makes sense since those types of organizations are more likely to have higher data quality standards and regulatory requirements. Without going into too many specifics, I let him know my approach on lightweight Data Governance. I think it’s something that I’ll continue to explore, and develop further. I had never articulated it that way before, but it sums up my theory well.

We got to talking about structured vs. unstructured data, and approaches for dealing with each. Lightweight Data Governance is very much unstructured Data Governance. Rather than building formalized organizations to manage data governance and large scale Master Data Management solutions, my approach has been to improve existing infrastructure, systems and processes piece by piece.

This approach can lead to early success in Data Governance programs, backing from colleagues in other departments and an understanding of the value that Data Governance can bring to an organization. It also eliminates some of the arguments from critics regarding high program start up costs, number of dedicated resources, etc. I would highly recommend it as a starting point.

Conversely, most existing theory is based in top-down, large-scale Data Governance. I’ve attended webinars that promote getting buy-in from the CEO down for Data Governance programs. To paraphrase, “Without executive support, Data Governance programs cannot succeed.” I think it’s critical to make some early progress in a new Data Governance program, and get mid-level support. The Directors and VPs who own not only business usage, but also the data and reporting technology need to understand the value of Data Governance. Many do already. If you partner with those leads then executive support will be there when you need it. That’s my theory at least.