 Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Executive Editor of Data Diversity. We'd like to thank you for joining the current installment of the Monthly Data Diversity Webinar Series, Real World Data Governance with Bob Siner. Today, Bob will be discussing Data Governance and Data Stewards Certification. Just a couple of points to get us started. Due to the large number of people that attend these sessions, you will be muted during the webinar. For questions, we'll be collecting them by the Q&A in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. Or if you'd like to tweet, we encourage you to share our highlights or questions via Twitter using hashtag RWDG, Real World Data Governance. Now let me introduce to you our speaker for today, Bob Siner. Bob is the President and Principal of KIK Consulting and Educational Services and the publisher of the data administration newsletter, TDAN.com. Bob has been a recipient of the Damon Professional Award for its significant and demonstrable contribution to the data management industry. Bob specializes in non-invasive data governance, data stewardship, and metadata management solutions. And with that, I will give the floor to Bob to get today's webinar started. Hello and welcome. Thank you very much, Shannon. Thank you, everybody, for taking time out of your schedules to participate in the webinar today. As Shannon mentioned, the topic of this webinar is Data Governance and Data Stewardship, or Data Stewards, I'd say, Certification. It's kind of interesting that I made that mistake there real quickly. You could actually think about calling this webinar Data Governance and Data Stewardship and Data Stewards Certification, because there's a bunch of different types of certification that are out there. And we're going to talk about those today. And in fact, we'll go into great detail of each of the different types of certification that are available, how to determine whether or not the right, which certification is right for you, whether you should be sending people out externally to certify or have internal certification. We're going to talk about all those fun matters here over the course of the next hour. So I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback on the information I provide today. Just real quickly, before we get started, I wanted to talk about the upcoming webinars in the series. And wow, this is really packed. The remainder of the year, we've got some great subjects to share with you during this webinar series. Next month, we'll be data modeling is Data Governance with a special guest, David Hay. In October, we'll be talking about governing metadata, whether it's vocabularies, dictionaries, or just the data itself. We'll talk about agile data governance in November and data governance in the Internet of Things in December. So I look forward to having you share that time with us and getting your feedback on those as well. A couple other real quick notes before we get started, and this was really big news last month and it's still really big news, is I have built a relationship. I have a partnership with my friends at Data Diversity. Obviously, it's through the webinar series and the white papers and things that I do. But now I have a partnership with Data Diversity regarding the Data Administration newsletter. Back in 1997 is when I got started with that. And I just wanted to let you know that the August 2015 issue is available, and please register online if you're interested in getting notes about the Data Administration newsletter. The KIK consulting website was redone last year. I'm looking for feedback on that. And also just two more quick notes. I talk about non-invasive data governance a lot. Shannon mentioned it in the introduction today. As of last September, I put out a book, Non-Invasive Data Governance, The Path of Least Resistance and Greater Success. Take a look at that if you're interested in any additional information about non-invasive data governance. And also, last but not least, I will be speaking at two Data Diversity events in the near future. The end of September is the Data Governance Financial Services Conference in Jersey City. And I will be talking about considerations for starting or enhancing a financial data governance program. And then in November, I will be speaking at the Enterprise Data Diversity 2015 event on a strategic data framework based on governance best practices. So not only do I hope that you will attend additional webinars in the future, but I hope to see you in one of those fine cities at one of those fine events. So what are we going to talk about today? We've got a bunch of things to talk about today, a bunch of different categories of information that I'd like to talk to you about data governance, data stewardship, and data stewardship certification. So we're going to talk a little bit about what is the value of becoming certified and is that going to do good things for you? Is it going to do the good things for your organization? We'll talk just a little bit about, well, what's the value that you can expect and what's the value that you might want to expect out of getting certified? We'll talk about a couple different categories of available certification, and I just mentioned three of them, data governance as a practice itself, data stewardship as a practice itself, and then if you are in fact a data steward within an organization, people are considering getting their data stewards certified. So we'll talk about those categories. We'll talk about what to look for from certification, whether certification is right for you, and then we'll wrap up by talking about the differences, the pros and cons between developing internal certification versus going externally to have people certified for your organization. So I'd like to start out by talking about definitions of data governance, and we know that there are many that are out there. This is the definition that I use. I talk about data governance as being the execution and enforcement of authority over the management of data and data-related assets, and a lot of people look at that definition and say that it's worded quite strongly. I worded strongly for a reason. I like people to kind of sit up and take notice. When they hear the words execution and enforcement of authority, it makes them think that we are going to make the right decisions around our data, whether it's definitions, whether it's production of data, or usage of data. And so rather than saying that data governance is the harmonization of people and process and data, or the bringing together of people and process and data, I don't disagree with those definitions, but I think we need to have some teeth behind how we define data governance, and that's why I use these terms. You don't have to use this definition, but it's one that I like to use because it gets people's attention. Data stewardship, on the other hand, is the formalization of accountability for the management of data. So we talk about formalization of accountability, and we'll talk a little bit more about this throughout the webinar today. In my opinion, a data steward is somebody that has a relationship to the data, whether they define data as part of their job, or whether they produce data, or they use data as part of their job. In most situations, organizations, at least the senior leadership of the organizations, would say that the people that define the data, produce the data and use the data, have some level of accountability for how they define, produce, and use the data. So rather than assigning people to be data stewards, oftentimes I talk in terms of identifying or recognizing people as data stewards. And so if you look at the definition that I use of data governance, the execution and enforcement of authority, the fact is I think that it can be done in a noninvasive way. We can identify who the stewards are, recognize them for what they do, and help them to become better at the ways that they handle data throughout the organization. The last definition I want to share with you is my definition of what I call noninvasive data governance. And it is the practice of applying that formal accountability through a framework of roles and responsibilities that I've shared before in this webinar series. And we're talking about applying governance to processes, rather than redefining all of our processes. So if we apply governance to existing, or even new processes, it feels a lot less threatening to the organization, a lot less invasive, so to speak. In the way that we are approaching implementing governance in our organization. And we're going to assure that the definition of production and uses of data does all of those fine things on the next bullet, which is to improve compliance, security, privacy protection, and improve on the quality and the use of data in the organization. So again, noninvasive really describes how we are applying governance to the organization with the goal to be as transparent and supportive and collaborative as we can within our own environment. And not have people go running for the hills every time that they hear the term data governance. So in the abstract, I talked a little bit about the responsibilities of a data steward, and that's not really what this webinar is about. We're going to talk about the certification that's available for stewards or for people that are doing stewardship or doing governance. But again, in my opinion, I say that a data steward can really be anybody in the organization, whether that's a business person or it's a technical person, that in some way has a relationship to the data, whether that's through the definition of data, the production or use, and if they're being held formally accountable for what they do in regards to that relationship, then they're a data steward. So if in fact that's everybody in your organization and you want to think about the fact that everybody in the organization is a data steward, well, that's one approach, rather than identifying a handful of people that have responsibility for data. That's a good thing, and there's different levels of data stewards, but we need to understand that anybody in the organization that has impact with the data is truly a person that is stewarding the data for the organization. So when I say a steward is a person that defines, produces, or uses data as part of their job, that can be basically anybody in the organization. So one of the things that we need to do is identify who they are, provide them with the education and the training, and the certification if necessary to help them to become as good of a steward as they can be. So let's talk one more thing about the responsibilities of the steward. We really talk about holding them accountable for what they do, and that's basically following the rules, whether definition rules, production rules, or usage rules. So if you have rules associated with how you define new data for the organization, people should follow those rules. If you have rules around logical data, physical data modeling, you need to have people that follow those rules as well. When it comes to the production of data, we need to make certain that the data that we are bringing in from the outside or the data that is being created inside or the data that is being moved from one place to another is well understood and that it follows the rules associated with it. When it comes to the usage rules, the rules around usage for the data, everybody who uses the data needs to protect the data or at least make sure that we're compliant with the data and that we're not breaking the rules and putting our organization at risk. So basically it really depends on how you define steward for your organization. That's really going to dictate how you are going to go about certifying stewards if even you're going to certify stewards within your organization. So the first thing I want to talk about or one of the first things I want to talk about is the value of becoming certified. So oftentimes when we're going to become certified in something, there are a bunch of questions that we need to ask. So the first question is, is the certification required? Who in the organization requires the certification or is it something that you require of yourself to help you with your career advancement? Should we be self-taught versus industry-taught? And I have some definite opinions about that and I'll share those with you when we get to the end of the webinar. But can we send people out to become certified in data governance or in data stewardship? Can we certify people internally for those things? Or can we only really internally certify people to be stewards the way that we are defining stewards within our organization? Now one question a lot of people have is what type of certification is even available? Where is it available? When is it available? And what's the cost of it? And one of the things that you really need to take a look at is who's doing the certifying? If it's somebody that you trust that has a lengthy track record in the industry, that might be better than a vendor that is trying to certify you in the use of their product. It really, again, depends on what you are looking for as value from becoming certified. So the last question here is how will this help you and how will it help your company? And we're going to look at both of those things throughout the webinar today. So the question often becomes, is internal or external certification better? Should we develop a reusable certification program ourselves? And what are some of the pluses and minuses to doing that? What are we going to certify people in? And what will it mean once a person is certified? Is it worth it just to get one person certified in something or do we need to get more than one person within our organization certified in the discipline that we are certifying them? And then really the most important question is for you, the participants in the webinar, will it help you to advance in your present or future employment? If you have certification in data governance or if you are a certified data governance or data stewardship professional, what does that mean to you? Are there organizations that are looking for people that have that type of certification and background and knowledge? And will it help you to advance not only in your career but within your organization? So is it meaningful to somebody? You know, who is it going to help? Is it going to help you? These are all questions when we're determining what the value of being certified is to us in our organization. There's a couple different levels of certification, too. And I'm getting ready to share with you a list of organizations that provide those data governance professional certification, data stewardship certification, and I didn't find as many, but organizations that are interested in certifying your people as data stewards. Well, what we need to look at is what are the different types of certification that are available? So there's certainly certification in data governance, and I'll share a bunch of those with you in data stewardship, but is that really the same thing as being certified as a data steward? So oftentimes what I have found in the organizations that I've worked with is that if they're looking for somebody to run the program or to participate in a big way within the program, they're looking for them to have a lot of education around data governance and around data stewardship. And that's vastly different from a person who perhaps may be a business analyst in your organization that is a data steward and sending them outside of the organization to try to get them certified in that. And like I said, I have some opinions about that. Oftentimes I think that if you're going to go and you're going to get people certified or you yourself are going to get certified, it will most likely be as a data governance professional or as a data stewardship professional. And then you've got to think about whether or not the people in your organization that are data stewards should we be sending them out to become certified as data stewards? There's certainly data management professional certification. There's graduate programs. There's a lot of different types of certification. And so I'm going to walk through a list of those for you and give you some information as to where you can go and get more information here in one moment. But really there's two basic types of certification, at least according to me. One is the education and the training base. So if we are going to become certified as a data governance professional, that is typically something that is education and training based. And then there's those organizations that will certify you as a data governance professional because of your experience and because of your qualifications. And oftentimes they're going to ask for how many years have you been doing this? What types of situations have you been in? But clearly there's two different types of certification. There's the ones that are more just education and training and the ones that are based on your qualifications and the experience that you've had in the industry. So let's talk about those a little bit. So starting the list of organizations that provide certification, we got to start with DAMA, our friends at DAMA, the Data Management Association International. They do a webinar series on Dataversity as well. But they certify people based on the DAMA, Data Management Book of Knowledge, the DM box that you might have heard about. And I provide the link for you there. DAMA does a great job in providing a lot of education and training for people in the data management space. And as you can see by the blurb that's listed at the bottom of the page, it tells you a little bit more about the precise type of certification that they offer. And oftentimes at the DAMA events and at the DAMA and Dataversity events, there's going to be courses in data governance, the DGSP basically. And you can take your tests right then and there. So that's the first one that we find when we're out there looking for different types of certification. The first place that I go all the time is to DAMA. And they certainly offer this type of data governance and stewardship professional certification. Again, it's basically certifying you as a professional and educated person, an experienced person in the industry. So please, if you get a moment, go out and take a look at what DAMA has to provide regarding certification. There's another company out there that provides certification. It's called eLearning Curve. And I provide the link for you right here. But they have two different types of certification. They have a certified information management professional, what they call their CIMP, which basically builds upon your education to certify you in a whole bunch of different disciplines associated with data management and information management. And they also offer that certified data steward certification, which is basically a role-based certification and it's for people that are just starting to become recognized as the fact that they are steward within their organization. So if you want more information about what it means to become a certified data steward by eLearning Curve, follow that link and you'll get a lot of information right then. But if you also want to become a certified information management professional, eLearning Curve also provides certification in that area as well. There's an organization that's called ARMA that used to be known as the Association for Records Managers and Administrators, and they are no longer going by that name. They are just going by ARMA International, and they have an information governance professional certification program. Again, so this is for somebody who wants to become certified as an information governance or data governance professional, and so the mission of the IGP certification program is to provide you with the credentials. They're calling an ethical and professional framework to help your organization to deliver value from governance, value and reduce risk of the data within your organization. And a lot of organizations, as they're getting started with data governance, are focusing on the protection of data. They're focusing on improving the quality and the knowledge of the data, but they want to make certain that the data follows the rules that are not only being determined internally, but being externally as well. So please, if you're looking for additional information about the IGP, or the information governance professional, go visit ARMA and there's a lot of information about that certification there. There's another organization that no longer goes by the name Information System Audit and Control Association. Now they are known as ISACA, or ISACA. And they are an international professional organization basically focusing on all things IT governance. And they have certifications in the areas that I have listed there. Certified information systems auditor, information security manager, governance of enterprise IT. Well, actually those first two bullet points, they're a little bit different. They're more on the professional side. You want to be an information systems auditor professional, or you want to become an information security manager professional. Those are the types of certification you would be looking for. If you want to become certified in governance of enterprise IT, I would label that more as the education and training type of certification. And the same holds true for the risk and information systems control, or the C-risk as they call it. And it go out to ISACA.org, I believe is the website to get more information about exactly the types of certification that they offer. There are a whole bunch of other types of certification that are out there. The GAC certified forensic analyst, that's the one that I found to be most interesting. And if you don't know what GAC stands for, I actually have to write it down. It's the Global Information Assurance Certification, and they provide a certified forensic analyst when it comes to data. And they're not talking about CSI Miami-type forensic, they're talking about data analytics, and improving the data, and data science, and those types of things. So go off to GAC.org, and you can find information about them there. HP offers a couple of different types of professional certification. The accredited integration specialist and the accredited technical professional, the NSA themselves offer information security, professional certification, the open group project management institute. They offer risk management certification and program management certification. And certainly you can become certified in different levels of things that are more technical, like Oracle, become an Oracle DBA, or Oracle Architect, same holds true for Teradata, Red Hat, Microsoft, just to name a few. And no matter what the technology is that you're working in, if you are looking for certification, the chances are there's somebody else that's also looking for that certification. So certainly when it comes to that type of technical knowledge, reach out to the vendors, reach out to the companies or the associations or the user groups, and ask them what types of certification they have seen people in that organization or in that type of organization participate in. And also ask the other questions that I'm sharing within this webinar. How has this been useful to you? Has it helped you to advance within your organization, within your career? Has it helped you to find a new job? These are all good questions to ask when it comes to why did other people get certified and then why might it be of some value to you as well. Then there's also corporate governance. And if that's not a term that you're familiar with, well, corporate governance basically is a broad term that's used to talk about the different mechanisms, processes and relations of which your corporation or your organization is controlled and directed. Corporate governance mechanisms include the actions, the policies and the decisions of your organization. Well, there's a bunch of different organizations and universities that provide corporate governance certification. So you can become certified in corporate governance at Drexel. There's a corporate governance training program at IMD. At Harvard Business School has a corporate governance program in South Africa. There's programs, you know, certainly do a search on that. But again, it really comes down to what are you trying to accomplish with the certification? Is it something to help you professionally? Is it something that's going to help your organization make certain that you pick something that's not too narrow for your career? You're always looking to expand your knowledge, but it's not too broad to the point that people don't accept it as being something that's going to help you to help them if they put you within a specific role within the organization. And last but not least, when it comes to available certifications, I want to talk about my friend Jelani Harper at Dataversity or he writes for Dataversity. He wrote an article back in November of 2003 that was called Data Governance Professionals, and I provide the link to that paper right there. In that article, Jelani wrote about professional organizations, non-traditional academia, and traditional academia, so there's a lot of good information. Go take a look at Jelani's article. There is a lot written on the subject, and you'll find that there may not be that many organizations that are providing the different types of governance that we're talking about in the webinar today. So it may not be a surprise to you that Jelani talks about and provides links to some of the same organizations that I talked about here, like Daima International and ARMA and ISACA and those types of organizations. They're the ones that have been around the longest. They're the ones that have been doing this the longest. Those are the ones typically that I would suggest that you look to first before you start going, looking for something much, much more specialized. So let's talk about what we should look for from certification in the data governance and data stewardship field. We should ask the question, why are we becoming certified from an organizational value perspective? What value is it bringing to the company and then what value is it bringing to us personally? So let's walk through each of those real quickly here. From an organizational perspective, it's really kind of interesting. I've seen organizations that have sent people to be certified for specific technical skills, but when it comes to data certification, I've seen it less. And from what I have seen in those organizations, where it has become something that's valuable to the organization, they've sent more than one person to get this type of certification unless it is the person that is going to be running the program or people that are involved in the running of the program. So the value, the organizational value of becoming certified increases with the number or percentage of people that are certified within that part of the organization or within that organization. So when we're talking about organizational value, we're not talking about just one individual who has the certification. We're talking about this becoming commonplace within the organization. It means getting a person or getting people to not only understand the data, but to understand data itself, to understand the impact that data has on the organization, has on their ability to make good decisions, their ability to continue to be compliant and to protect the data. When we're talking about organizational value, we're talking about getting people to understand data in general, and we know that can be a process to get them to look at things the way that we look at things. We as data professionals look at things, to get them to understand data in general first, but then help them to understand the data of their organization, where it resides, who has responsibility for it, how is it defined, and all of those things. What I've found with a lot of organizations is that they're focusing on the business glossary, the terms and the benefits of having similar language across the organization. So we want people to not only understand the data from a technical perspective, but we want to speak the same language. We want to have the same semantics and use the same terms to describe the same things throughout the organization. But then we want them to know where does that data reside in the organization and how do we define it for use within our operational systems and within our analytical systems. So we want them to understand data. We want them to understand the data within the organization. But one of the things that I find first and foremost in a lot of organizations is we need people to understand that they need to protect the data. And if that's everybody in the organization, then I would consider everybody to be a data usage steward, as I mentioned before. But again, why are we becoming certified because we're looking to add value to the organization? There's value in numbers. These are some of the things that it means to provide that organizational value through certification of data governance and data stewardship. It means that people in the organization are educated in the rules and that they follow the rules. And oftentimes that requires metrics to measure those things. How many people have been educated? How do we know that they're following the rules? And those rules can be risk management rules. They can be business rules. They can be data change management rules. It means that people throughout the organization are becoming consistent in how they define the data and how they produce the data and how they use the data. So there's one more item I want to really add to this is, you know, are we really talking about getting individuals certified that will add organizational value? And before I mentioned that there's certainly power in numbers. Or are we actually looking at... maybe it's the organization is what should become certified. So that's something that I haven't seen out there on the market yet, where an organization will come in and certify your organization from a governance perspective or certify them from a stewardship perspective. But perhaps when we're talking about the organizational value that there might be some value in your organization becoming certified in data governance rather than an individual being certified in data governance. So let's take a little bit of a deeper dive into that for a second. So when organizations begin promoting themselves as being good with their data, you might hear them saying things like we protect our data better than our competition. We improve the quality of the data consistently and continuously within the organization. We centralize how we manage our data. Those are all things that could be... an organization could become certified in if there was an outside organization that you had trust in. Now oftentimes the auditors are looked at as almost as external certifiers, but really they have a different function and a different purpose within your organization. So you may be seeing sometimes in the future that organizations will become certified in data governance or that organizations will become certified in data stewardship. So when we get to that point, you may find organizations saying that we analyze our data to serve our customers better. Isn't that what we're all trying to do? We govern our data the best or they start to promote the idea that they are a certified data governance organization that hasn't happened yet, but I can see that coming in the future. Maybe that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about the organizational value that comes from data governance and data stewardship certification. So let's kind of change gears here a little bit and let's talk about what to look for in certification. Why are you becoming certified? So there's a bunch of different reasons why you as an individual may become certified in data governance or in data stewardship or even becoming certified as a data steward itself. So those things would be career advancement, monetary advancement. And to be honest with you, I haven't seen a lot of organizations that promote people because they have become a certified data steward or that they get more money because they are a certified data steward. But it might be something that you want to do personally for your career advancement. And it might get you involved in different things within your organization. And it might give you additional responsibilities. I put peer recognition on this slide here because it's something that's worth talking about. I'm not certain that people in the organization are going to look at you differently because you were certified as a data steward. If you've had a different experience, please share that with me. But it's not something that I have seen much of at this point. And some people get certified because they want to get recognized as being an expert within their profession. I have not seen too many organizations that ask for the certification. But if you're in a situation where it is required, it is something that might separate you from another candidate for a specific job, either within your company or outside your company. So why are you becoming certified in data governance for that personal career value? Oftentimes, becoming certified is a data governance professional means that you have thorough understanding of data governance from the different approaches that are available to you, from the different types of roles and responsibilities, the uses of a data governance council and the data stewards, ways to develop communication plans and action plans. And just to let you know, KIK Consulting, my company, provides some classes on data governance as do other consultants and other organizations. So if you want to get educated in data governance, you can attend webinars like this. You can read T-Dan. You can visit KIK Consulting. You can go to Data Diversity. There's a lot of different places for you to get information about the field of data governance. However, if you are a new data governance manager and it's something that's brand new to you, you might come from a non-data-related background. So it would be one thing if you have a data background, but if you have a technical background or a business background, scientific or a project management background, you may want certain types of education and training around data governance that are special to people that come from those types of background. So you can look for those things or you can get general data governance certification. And again, what we're talking about here is becoming certified as a data governance professional, which is a lot different. Well, let's talk about this. So why are you becoming certified in data stewardship? Well, really, a lot of times stewardship depends on your organization. Do you agree with me that everybody in your organization that has an association to the data needs to be held accountable in order for us to truly have governance of data across the organization? Or are you in an organization like many have seen where I'll come into a conference room in one of the first few days that I'm there, and it may be a company of several thousand people, and they'll point at five people and say those are the data stewards in our organization. And that might be the way that people might be identified or might be assigned to be data stewards. They might be identified. They might be recognized. Everybody could be a data steward or just a handful of people could be data stewards. If you are interested, come sometime back. That is called signers' rules for being a data steward. And I provide the URL for you right there. But it tells you things that I think that we need to look at in defining what makes a person a data steward within an organization. So you can become certified in data stewardship just like you can be certified in data governance. Some organizations use the term stewardship almost interchangeably with data governance. So your organization may not call it governance because governance means something else completely. So they may call it data stewardship. So you might become certified in data stewardship because stewardship is really the term that's used within your organization. The fact is that data governance and data stewardship are really two different things. Data governance, again, being the execution and enforcement of authority while data stewardship being the formalizing of accountability. So those are two different things. Oftentimes stewardship kind of leads to data governance. If we identify who the stewards are, we formalize their accountability for the data that they manage. That's basically the backbone of building a data governance program. And in my opinion, if you're going to go out there and you're going to get certified in something, you're probably going to get certified in data governance. You're going to find less certification in data stewardship. And again, these are for people that are responsible for the data governance or data stewardship program within your organization. So why are you becoming certified as a data steward? Well, is it because your company is making it mandatory or your company is making the education or training available to you? You're looking to take on some level of personal advancement? Or you really need to ask the question, what is the value to you and to your company of becoming a certified data steward? And really, we can go back to the questions we asked before about our career. Is this something that is really going to help me to advance within my career if I get certified as a data steward? So we may want to take one other additional look at that, is that because you're certified as a data steward within one organization, is another organization going to hire you as a data steward? And are they going to accept the certification from the previous organization? It's usually an organizational type of thing where we want to certify our data stewards internally rather than send them external for certification. There, I gave away the ending to the webinar, but that is one of the things that I have a strong feeling about is that external steward certification, not stewardship certification, that it's a load of bumps because it really needs to be specific to the way that you define a steward within your organization. So now if you get to the point where you're asking the question, is certification right for me? And what type of certification should I get? My suggestion is that data governance and data stewardship certification and the education and the training around governance and stewardship is what most people will be seeking. You can become certified as a data steward, but we're going to talk in a minute about doing that internally versus doing it externally. Daemon provides the certification of a data management professional and a bunch of the other certifications that you have information on. We're also certifying people as professionals in that industry. Or you can get certified in a specific discipline, a certain technology that you use or that you know other organizations use quite a bit of that will help you to advance within your career. So do you want to become certified? What is your organization? Think about certification. Those are all things that we need to keep in mind when we're determining whether or not we're going to get certified. How will it help me to grow and broaden my knowledge? Professionally, personally, there are some organizations that look at this certification and don't look at it as strongly as maybe some of us do, but they believe that off-site certification days are like vacation days. If you want to go off and you want to learn about what it means to be a data stewarder, then that's great. But there's some people that don't look at it as having professional or personal value. They don't see the value in it. And if that's the case, I'm pretty certain that your organization is going to see the value in it before you send people out or you yourself get certified in a specific area. So really the most important question becomes what will I do with the certification once I pass? How is it going to help me to advance within my career? So let's talk a little bit about internal versus external certification and then we'll have time to take questions here in a few minutes. You know, it is my thought that we can send people outside. That data governance and data stewardship certification is better external. But the question then becomes, should we do data steward certification internally or externally? So in the next couple of slides here we're going to talk about the case for internal data steward certification and the case for external steward certification. And then I'll provide with you a summary of my thoughts on the matter. So first things first, let's talk about, should data stewardship certification be done internally or externally? Well, what's the case for doing it internally? What are the pros and cons? The pro case is that if you internally certify your data stewards the way that you've defined data stewardship within your organization, it can be very organization and program specific to your organization. You have control over that. You can reuse that type of education. It becomes much more cost effective for organizations. So rather than continually sending people to the outside we can have a train-to-trainer type environment where we teach people internally to provide that type of education. It becomes much more cost effective and it can really focus on the main value points of governance and stewardship in your organization. What are the cons of doing internal certification? Well, it's going to require resources. It's going to require a commitment for developing a program like that. It's going to require some level of specificity and quality around defining what it is that a data steward does. And that requires resources. It requires time. It requires money. It requires all of those things. So again, the internal case is it can be very specific to the stewards within your organization. The external or the cons of doing it internally it's going to cost you money. Somebody has to have the responsibility for putting that type of program together and so there are costs that are associated with doing internal steward certification. Let's talk about the case for external certification. The pros are for doing it externally it doesn't require the resources. These are kind of the reverse of the previous slide. The pros would be of doing it externally you don't require those resources. You don't require the commitment or the specificity or the quality. The cons are that you're getting people general education about what it means to be a data steward and it may not be specific enough for use within your organization. You have no control over that education and that training or even that. If it's a professional level of certification you have no control over that either. It's not necessarily focused on the value points that are specific to your organization. So here's my thoughts. My thoughts are that it's okay to become certified externally when it comes to data governance and data stewardship disciplines. And I find that especially to be true if you're learning it because you now have the responsibility of managing this for your organization. In my opinion you will not be certified for data governance or data stewardship internally so we really need to drop that from the question and my opinion is that data steward certification should be internal rather than external. And I think that I've talked a little bit about that just recently. So really we want to get stewards certified internally. We want to get the people that are running the program knowledgeable in what governance and stewardship is if they don't have that so we can send people for external data governance and data stewardship certification. But again, I believe that external data steward certification is really a load of bunk. It's not something that I see of adding a whole lot of value to organization. So why do I consider it a load of bunk is because the steward responsibilities often echo their relationship to the data. If somebody defines data as part of their job or produces or uses the data, they have a formal level of accountability. It really needs to echo whatever their relationship is to the data. Stewards do what they do. Now we're not going to teach somebody to do their job as a business analyst through data stewardship certification. So stewards do what they do, but they need to be held more formally accountable for the way that they define, produce and use data and kind of go back to what I said earlier on in the presentation. A data steward can be anybody or everybody in your organization. It's a different way of looking at things, but if you define your program to handle that, to me it makes a whole lot of sense that anybody in your organization that needs to be held accountable for the data should be held accountable for the data. Because you want to make certain that you can put something. Another reason why you want to do it internally is that you may want to put something in place that you can certify all the definers, all the producers, all the users of the data. You want to certify everybody or at least those specific people that play roles in active data projects. So real quickly, we're about a quarter before the hour. The main points that I covered during the webinar is we talked a little bit about the value of being certified. We talked about different categories of certification. We talked about different types of organizations that provide that type of certification. Excuse me, what to look for from certification, whether it's right for you. Talked a little bit about the pros and cons of internal versus external certification. And again, I mentioned that external certification is good for governance or stewardship when the internal certification would potentially be better for data stewards themselves. So that's what we talked about today. Just real quickly before we go into the Q&A, I wanted to remind you that next month on the 17th, we've got a great webinar coming up called Data Modeling is Data Governance, meant to be a little bit controversial, meant to ruffle a few feathers on the data modeling and the data governance side. Let's hear what Dave Hay and I have to say next month on the third Thursday of the month. I hope to see you there. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Shannon. We have any questions today? We do, and always the most popular question are people asking about the slides. And just a reminder, I will send a follow-up email by end of day Monday with links to the slides, links to the recording, and anything else requested throughout the webinar. Now let's get right to the questions here. First question is, Bob, do you hold any of the data steward certifications discussed? I do not. And I'll even take that question one step further. I've never been asked for them either. So it may be something within your organization that you think of, and you could either view that as a good thing or a bad thing that I don't have that certification, but I don't. And I don't provide certification either because I think it really depends on the approach that you're taking to governance. And you know how I feel about internal, I'm sorry, external data steward certification. Now I've never gotten to the point where I've been certified in those disciplines. I love that. Great question. Or certification. There is a data governance component to the data management maturity model. Do you find many orgs pursuing the DMM? There are organizations, and the DMM is still relatively new. I think it's been out there for probably a little bit more than a year, and it's been under the works for a bit of time before that. But there is a data governance component to the DMM, and I think it makes perfect sense. I very much stand behind what the DMM represents. I don't know that they offer a certification. I believe that they do. If you're somebody who's going to teach or consult in it, they may provide certification internally for organizations as well. I'm not familiar with it yet, but it is certainly somebody that I would take a look at and see what they provide. Yeah, we've actually done a few webinars with Melanie Mecca from the Carnegie Mellon Institute for all the DMM. Yeah, it's a good friend of mine. It writes a column on the TDAN publication, actually. Yeah, that's great. For someone who runs a data governance office, what is the best certification? Well, some of that really depends. If they're running a data governance office, I'm going to make an assumption that they have some level of knowledge in data governance. But if they're going to certainly run a data governance office within an organization, just by the mere fact that they call it an office, it makes it sound like it's more than one individual. It could be multiple people in the organization. I would suggest if you are going to get certified, or if you're going to get education and training, get it in data governance. And go to somebody that provides data governance professional certification, and you will get the stewardship aspect of it. You may not get what it means to be a specific steward in your organization, but if you're directing a data governance office, if you don't have the knowledge that you need, certainly look to the external resources. And like I said, DAMA, ARMA, those guys all certify people in data governance itself. And actually, it's perfect that you mentioned DAMA. You did mention the DAMA data governance certification, but you didn't mention the CDMP. So what's the difference between those, and what do you think of that? The CDMP, I believe, is very similar to what I did talk about. So yes, they will certify you as a data governance professional, but the CDMP is a certification of a data management professional. And so I apologize for not mentioning that, but that's certainly another type of certification that you can receive. And it's for people that are looking for a more general understanding of data management, and somebody who is entering the data management space and wants to separate them from other people within the data management space. But one is certifying you in data management, and it includes a little bit of governance. The other one focuses on certifying you as a data governance professional. Sure. And I'm trying to think of the other wheel houses. I know metadata and other things like that, and there's a wheel spoke that you can get that it covers the CDMP. Bob, do you know that companies that have developed an internal data storage certification? Can you talk about their process? Well, certainly. I know Michelle Cook has. I'm sorry. Say it again. I said I know Michelle Cook has. Right. Exactly. That was one that I was going to hold as probably the prime example. Michelle Cook from Sally May, which is now another company that's changed name. I think it's Enviance. Yeah. She speaks at a lot of the data diversity and data governance events. She speaks at Enterprise Data World. So her organization, I believe, built their certification program because they defined stewards a specific way within their organization, and they felt that it would be more cost-effective and more efficient for them to develop their own type of certification. And all it really meant, and I believe that they've advanced on this since I have last spoken to Michelle, is that they wanted people to become data people. They wanted people to know what data they had, understand the data that they used within their specific job. So they certified people as data stewards within their organization. The example that they set for the industry is one that I think is great and that should be followed by other organizations as well. Again, a lot of it depends on the size of your company and if you have the wherewithal to be able to do something like that. But that's a prime example. I have another client that right now is looking to certify people in their knowledge of the data in the data warehouse, and that includes understanding it from a semantic layer, understanding it from a business vocabulary, and then a data dictionary level and then understanding the data itself. But they want people who are going to use the data warehouse to understand what data is in it, how they can access it, how they should use it, what needs to be protected, all of those types of things. So I'm very much an advocate for internal data steward certification. And that leads right into the next question, Bob. Is data governance certification starting to pop up as a desired qualification during the hiring process? Are companies starting to hire data governance professionals specifically, or is it more like you're just talking about? Is it the internal certification that you must achieve? Well, that's another great question. A lot of these are fantastic questions. So I think you may start to see the requests for data governance certification more and more, but I have yet to come across it. So I know as an example with a client of mine, and I hate to talk too specifically of those things, we just hired a data governance manager, and that was not a question for them, was do you have data governance certification? If they had said that they had had data governance certification, would that have helped them? I would have to think that it would have helped them. We would probably ask them what they were certified in and who certified them and those types of things, like a lot of the questions that I mentioned in the webinar here. But it would be something that would separate them. It would demonstrate a level of seriousness about wanting to be coming educated in a specific field, and on that point, I think it's a value to anybody who is interested in that type of certification. So the next question is, many data governance certification curricula remain rather theoretical. Today, more and more vendors offer software solutions for making data governance more practical and tangible. Can you highlight some interesting programs offered by vendors? You know what, I don't want to really name any vendors in particular, but I know of several that have products that are data governance tools that are just now starting to push through what they are calling their university. So again, I don't want to mention the name, but they talk about certifying people as users in that specific product. Frankly, I don't really see much of a difference between that and being certified in a DVMS or certified in another data modeling tool or something like that, because yes, it may be helpful to them in an organization that is using that specific product. So I think that there is value to it there. But for them, I think that they will more certify you in their product for data governance than they will in the industry for data governance. Again, just my take on it. Having issues from my mute button there. Okay, so what is the risk, if any, if the data steward is not certified? What is the risk of a data steward? Again, another fantastic question. What is the risk would be if they're not certified at all that they're just going to do their job and they don't have a whole lot of knowledge about their relationship to the data and their impact on the data and on how the data is used by the rest of the organization. So that might be a risk. Another risk might be that they don't completely understand the rules about protecting the data. And you can certainly do that without certifying people internally as a data steward. But I would say that the risk of sending somebody outside is that they're going to get something that's more philosophical. They do it internally. It's a good thing. I don't think that there's any harm in either of those. To be honest with you, it's just that if the people who are defining and producing and using data in your organization did not know the rules that they need to follow, whether they're certified or not, then you're going to have problems as an organization in managing your data. So that's really the risk that you're going to run from not educating people. I wouldn't say that it's a risk of not being certified. It's more of a risk of not educating the stewards in your organization. But a great question. I would agree with that. And there looks to be all the questions right now. If you have any other questions, go ahead and submit them into the Q&A box. If we don't have a chance to get to them today, Bob will certainly follow up after the webinar with answers in the follow-up email, which I will send out again by end of day Monday with links to the slides, links to the recording, and anything else requested throughout the webinar, including a lot of Bob's major Cs that he often goes over. Bob, thank you so much for another great presentation. And I will see you shortly at DG Financial, Data Governance Financial in Jersey. Very good. Thank you very much, Shannon. Thank you again, everybody, for attending the webinar. I hope to hear you again or see you again. Thank you, everyone. I hope you have a great day. Take care. Bye.