Problem Statement for Data Governance, a reply to John Eisenhauer

Background

John Eisenhauer once asked the following question in LinkedIn:

"What is the business problem, in the form of a classic problem statement, that Data Governance is meant to solve?"

Here is a most excellent definition of Data Governance created by Steve Adler's (IBM) Data Governance Council:

"Data governance is a quality control discipline for controlling toxic content and protecting the value in our data. The need for privacy, security, ethics, DQ and auditing means it requires a multi-disciplinary dialogue across your company."

Working backwards, this suggests the following.

Introduction

There is business value in our data. The proof is that people want access to it, and other people want to protect it:

• Our own people need it as a business resource;
• External people want to steal it to gain a commercial advantage from it; and
• External regulators want to protect the public from its misuse.

Problem Statement

The business value in our data is not being protected.

It is under siege from toxic content, theft, carelessness, and inappropriate usage. This is exposing us to business risks and lost business opportunities.

Contributing Factors

This situation has arisen due to the following factors:

• A lack of understanding about the effect of poor quality data on business decision-making;
• A belief that this is purely an IT problem, rather than a business problem, which has led to an abdication of business control;
• A lack of resources and processes to protect our data, stemming from the lack of understanding of its importance;
• Fragmented control over and lack of visibility into the data we have across our organisation; and
• Poor or missing policies and work practices that should aim at retaining value.

Potential Impacts

If left to decline in value, our data will impact on our ability to operate effectively.

At the very least, our business decisions will not be as good as they could be, and (in the worst cases) could cripple us as an organisation.

Mitigation Strategy and Potential Benefits

A data governance program that aims at retaining the value in our data should mitigate this risk, and may even allow us to discover new business opportunities that we have not been aware of.

- David Jaques-Watson, DAMA International group, LinkedIn, March 2013.