 So, what are we here to do today? Essentially, having a little conversation about data governance and doing a little reality check in terms of what actually works, what usually doesn't, or perhaps you have some ideas that you could share with me. I'm always in a daily learning mode, so I would love to hear from you as well. So, let me go ahead and start. I did say in my subtitle here about overcoming barriers and resistance to change, but those of you who've been in the data governance space for a while, you'll know exactly what that means. And that is that, and if some of you were here earlier at the 7.30 a.m. kind of breakfast session for our data governance professionals organization, you hear us, you heard us talk about sustainability. So, just FYI, data governance is not a one-time deal. It's not a one-time only project. I'd like to look at it as a way of life, okay? So moving right along, I'd like to cover along the way some key considerations for data governance. We are here to talk about data, and data being the foundation, okay? We're also going to be talking about competition for resources. You will know that in any small, medium, or large company, you're always talking about do we have the resources to get anything done, okay? Also we'll talk a little bit about how to partner for success, and also how do we actually build a community of trust. So a lot of times when you talk about data governance, it's really about building a community, a community that is made up of business and IT individuals, a bunch of us data folks, and at the end of the day, what you're building is you're building a community that trusts each other to make decisions. So let me move right along. All these slides are really setups for us to think about a few things that actually matter. So when we talk about key considerations for data governance, a lot of times we want to be looking at these things in pair. So when you talk about culture and maturity, we want to be able to look at them as a pair. Because when we talk about culture, this is organizational culture. The culture of the company. But each company has a different pulse. It's a different way of communicating. Has a different way of collaborating or not. Some companies are very hierarchical. Other companies are all about change, right? So at the end of the day, you need to really understand the culture of the company that you're at. And by the way, along the way, you'll realize that a lot of what I'm talking about here in data governance, it could apply to you at home. Okay? So there's a huge kind of people side to data governance. The other combination is really when we're talking about change. Data governance is transformational. It is about change. So what you want to do is be also very aware. Does your company have the appetite for data governance? Does your company have the appetite for change? A lot of people will say, yeah, that sounds good. But at the end of the day, when you get down to it, people will go, oh, is that what you meant? Well, maybe we're not as ready. But anyway, the other combination is, and by the way, I'm practicing on this laser, sponsors and partners. You cannot do this alone. You need to identify your sponsors, find them, seek them, identify them. And at the same time, you want to be able to identify your partners. You need to have partners that will make this work, all right? So if you ever hear anybody saying, I designed or I developed, blah, blah, blah, it's going to be very rare that one person built your data governance program, okay? It's going to be a cast of thousands, perhaps depending on how large your company is. Okay, so moving right along, culture, maturity, and actually I kind of talked about this already, but organizational readiness, the politics, the organizational culture, right? If your company is very hierarchical in nature and all decisions are made at the top and nowhere else, your data governance program or data governance council, what have you, it's going to look quite different than one that relies on kind of a heavily matrix kind of decision making. And initiatives, transformational initiatives are looked at in a different way, right? So at the end of the day, your leadership needs to be involved. Yes, let me come a closer, yes, yes. So my personal belief, now that here's Akira ism, I believe that we can work together successfully. So the question was about have I encountered or seen data governance programs that are in competition with each other? One is perhaps the formal one, one the informal. And by the way, I've seen quite a few of those. And my belief is the more the merrier. But, but, was that me? I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to do that. I think there's an opportunity for us to help each other and work together. Data governance is hard enough as it is without us feeling like my program is better than yours. Well, if I were in that situation, I would try to bring the various groups together to say, hey, how can we help each other? How can we make it work? All right, so now later, we'll talk a little bit about competition for resources, perhaps that might be a different conversation there as well. Has anybody else kind of encountered that situation where there's, yes, so you have? So, okay, that's good. So hopefully, it's going to be an opportunity perhaps for us to work together. So, okay, and anybody else? And you have to. So it is not uncommon to actually see if you're looking at, from an IT perspective, IT organizations usually would want to start some form of data governance program or initiative. But my personal belief is that none of those programs would really work without the partnership and sponsorship and support from the business. So, and you'll see that actually in the thread throughout is about business and IT partnership. Okay, let's see. The politics with any program that is far reaching enough, you will find that there will be, quote unquote, politics, right? So, along the same lines where we talk about leadership, you need to seek your sponsors, you actually, or whoever is involved in your data governance program or initiative. Hopefully, you are already natural leaders, because that really helps. So leadership, when I talk about leadership, it's not about the fact that you have to be an SVP or an executive VP or president or what have you. Each one of us has those skills and we should be leaders in this space. And if we're not, we should perhaps acquire some skills, partner with a few other folks who have those skills. But at the end of the day, you can lead from the back. But with data governance, a lot of times you do have to take some. You have to take responsibility and accountability for the decision making that goes on within the data governance space. We talk a little bit in terms of culture and maturity. There needs to be sharing. I didn't put it in here, but the reason why I was talking about sharing and community is that a lot of times, data does not live in one group or one space or one domain alone. Data is shared across the enterprise. Earlier today, we talked about customer data. Customer data does not, quote unquote, belong to any one individual or group or what have you. The data stewards for customer data could exist across the enterprise. We talk about community. We talk about data ownership. So at the end of the day, this is all about collaborating, communicating, sharing, what have you. You do need to identify data stewards. But once you start looking at the fact that the data needs to be shared across your enterprise, data ownership doesn't really belong anymore. So one of the things that I always talk about in terms of data governance is that there are no data owners. Or when I say ownership, I always try to say quote unquote ownership. Because at the end of the day, you don't want data owners. You want people who want to and do care to take responsibility and accountability for the data, any data. So moving along, sponsors and partners. Essentially what you're doing is when you're seeking out your sponsors and your partners, you're building your own support system for your data governance program, right? So at the end of the day, you need to be building relationships. You need to be able to get people involved in your program that can see into the future, right? I'm not saying that you can't build a program based on experts. Data experts in any particular domain, that's great. But at the end of the day, you want people to care enough to take us or take you, take the whole group into the future. And I think earlier, if you'd been in the prior session this morning or perhaps later on today and tomorrow, you'll hear about structured data versus unstructured data, big data, etc. At the end of the day, you can't move towards sort of the new data paradigms unless you have a very good foundation for governing your data. Because it doesn't really matter when you think about it, whether it's structured, unstructured, big data, whatever. At the end, it's all about people. So you need to seek out the individuals who will actually help you move through building the support system. A lot of governance is also about building consensus. You can't really govern data if you're all by yourself. Or earlier, David Plotkin was talking about authority. So sometimes, authority comes from the top and you can hit the hammer down on the gavel and boom, it's done. It's decided. Well, that is not enough. You need people to actually carry it forward and make it happen. So a lot of times, you'll hear about data governance programs. Whoa, weak about this data governance council and it works. It's like, but does anybody do anything that council ever said you should do? Or mandated that you do so? It's the people who are going to carry it out that need to be part of this. And you need to be able to convince them that consensus is achievable. A lot of this is about also, besides your leadership skills, it's going to be your ability to negotiate. Being able to see both sides or more than one side of the coin. And being able to get people to come across or come together. Which, by the way, requires a lot of what it's kind of embedded in there, it's engagement. The best data governance programs, it's not about having your super duper data steward for one data domain or whatever. And it's not about, wow, this well-attended data governance council, right? It's about, it's not one meeting to the next meeting. It's every day, all day long. Meaning that if you're pulling together or your team or your group is trying to pull together a data governance program, it is constant engagement. Engaging with your stakeholders, engaging with your partners, engaging with your leaders, engaging with whether it's a business, the business side or the IT side. You're always making things work by engaging with people. Whether it's informing folks, oh, such and such a thing needs to happen. Or communicating, oh, we just did blah, blah, blah, blah. The council just approved something, it's everything. It's ongoing and it's nonstop. So at the end of the day, it's really not a one-person job, because no one person can do all of that. So what you do is when you're seeking your sponsors and partners, you're looking for people who will kind of pass the word, or basically be your evangelist as well. So before I go on to the next one, any questions? Appetite for change. This is a huge one. You can have the best organization. You can have the best councils. You can have 200 data stewards. But if the company itself or major groups within the company are not ready for change, or they don't have the big appetite, they just have a little one, you need to know that. It doesn't mean you can't be done. It just means that you need to know, oh, OK, they're not ready for that big pie in the sky thing. Perhaps we do things in small increments. So really knowing how ready your company is. This is important for those of you who are just about to start a program. You need to know, oh, how well do I know my company? How well do I know what would work and what wouldn't? And by the way, there's no one formula. The formula is in how well you know your business, how well you know your company, how the company ticks is huge. Because if you don't know that, please spend the time to do your research. Get to know the people who have been the old timers or people who actually want to be on the forefront of change. So the last thing you want to do is start a data governance program, invite all the key players in there, and then find out, oh, well, they're really not ready. Maybe it's next year. Maybe it's another. Or maybe you scale it down so that it would actually work. In some companies, you'll find that things are all done by example. Or people are only looking at projects. They're not looking at the big programs. So build your credibility by having a bunch of little win-win projects. I think you've probably done some of that already. And for those of you who have been trying to build a data governance program or have already built it, but you find out, hey, how come we have these governance council meetings or some operations meeting as three people show up? Well, I used to start out with 25. What happened to everybody? Well, why? Did people decide that, oh, they've got it. Things are done. And people decided that, OK, it's completed. We're done. See you later. Chances are that's not the case. It's probably that people either left because you, quote, unquote, weren't doing something or you were not being impactful. You know, sometimes people leave because they feel that, hey, they don't know talking about me anymore. So I'm not learning anything new or I'm not doing any. What's in it for me, when I say me and everybody else? A lot of times people feel that, ah, no teeth. So why are we meeting the waste of time? Besides, we already talked about all the fun stuff. See you later. There are many, many things that could actually take people away. And a lot of it is a lot of talking, no action. That never goes very far for too long. So there are techniques to keep things in motion, keep things moving, make sure when you're making decisions that those actually mean something, that it can be carried out. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. So later, we can probably talk a little bit about the different ways that we can keep things exciting and interesting. Speed and agility. A lot of times people want to make the change happen tomorrow. With data governance, it is not a quick and dirty thing. So before you could even set it up, it takes a while, takes a lot of knowledge, takes a lot of research, a lot of partnerships, and all that stuff. But once you even have it set up, you do need to, again, now, going back to knowing your business, knowing your company, your organization, is perhaps moving at the speed of light is slightly faster than people can handle. Know that. You don't know it. Find it. Move at the speed that the company is comfortable moving at. Otherwise, you'll be that outlier over there and looking back, and there's nobody back there. Prioritization. You can't do everything all at once. Even if you had a lot of people and a lot of very smart people, and a lot of people who want to do or make the change or take data governance on with you, make sure that you have some sort of process to prioritize. Then part of their prioritization, it does help if you have some form of official approval process for huge projects, for example. Most companies do, but I'm amazed at some very big companies that don't have that. So if it's something that you have a process that's already in place, whether it's a program lifecycle, project lifecycle, software development lifecycle, or software delivery, or system delivery lifecycle, whatever have you, if there's some process that already is in place, I don't want to use the word take advantage of it, from a data governance perspective. You should know where you could actually embed some data governance activity, or even gates. So there are opportunities out there. So it's not like you have to start everything from scratch. So you may need to go hang out with the project management folks or the program management folks for a while to say, hey, where can we kind of align? Because a lot of times you find out that especially for companies that are very project driven, everything is done through a project. Even huge transformational change initiatives are done through a project. And that project could be like a five-year project or whatever. But so this, again, comes back to being able to understand what is your business, how your company ticks. And let me do a little time check here. A lot of times people do want to work on data governance, but they don't really know how. So our job is to actually help them or help us figure it out. So one of the things about data governance is that if you have even small quick wins through the execution or delivery of any particular project, that is already something that you could actually try to influence today. Perhaps going and introducing yourself to some project team and say, hey, oh, well, even if it's a data cleansing project, anything, go and talk with them. Say, hey, how can I help you? And there are ways to actually execute on something even very small. Then you keep a track. And you have then a track record where you can then help influence on a much larger scale eventually. Roadmap alignment. A lot of times you'll find out once you get involved in data governance that, oh, my god, this group is doing this. That other group is doing why. It looks like the same thing. And this is not just from a data governance perspective. This is like the actual project. It's like actually working on the same type of thing. So ideally, you can use roadmap alignment opportunities to influence how much value you can bring. What value does data governance bring? So let me actually keep walking and talking here and doing a quick time check. OK, so I think we have like a good 20 minutes. What I'd like to do is, as we progress, just keep in mind these slides are just to kind of get you thinking or what have you, right? It's yes. My first stop is always who's responsible for that particular business process associated with customer, especially if it's the data entry process. The first hit, right? So the same idea when you start looking at data quality, you try to go as close to the source as possible. Similar kind of thing here in terms of data governance. You want to go to try to get as close as possible to who's actually impacting that or making decisions about that data. So a lot of times from a business process perspective, you actually are looking at perhaps the data acquisition folks from a customer perspective. And many times, it's the sales folks or the first contact. So a lot of times you start thinking about, OK, well, how far upstream can I go? As far up as you go, it would be ideal. But as you probably already know, a lot of sales folks would not have the time to actually be the data steward. So a lot of times, and this is where the IT folks come in, it's like, oh, yeah, we'll just cleanse all the data. So well, wait a minute. Whoever makes the decision about the data is usually a good bet, a good group to start with. And a lot of times you'll hear about, OK, for data steward, I want to find the person that knows most about any particular type of data. Well, it's not always the one who knows the most. You will need your subject matter experts as well. But as a data steward, they also need to know the bigger picture. It's like, why is that data important? What business processes are associated with it? A lot of times from our subject matter experts get zoomed very deep into something. You need to, the level of data stewards that you probably should be seeking would be perhaps a few steps removed from the deepest, darkest, the bowels of the data. I don't know if that can answer your question. And by the way, you don't need to have one or two data stewards and only at the source. At each touch point of the data, each major touch point, perhaps there's a metric steward, or perhaps along the flow of your data, though your data stream or what have you, there could be folks along the way as well. So I'm a firm believer in being inclusive as opposed to exclusive. So let's see what we have next here. When we start talking about data, I've heard this a lot, is that data is power. I've actually talked with key stakeholders who say, well, no, this is my data. And nobody else is going to get a hold of it until I say so. That's pretty restrictive. But you know what? Data is power. But it's to be shared, not to be owned. Yeah? Yes. Oh, that happens a lot. When people realize that, oh, it's going to be, yeah. People have this idea that once you get involved in data stewardship, for example, it's like, all of a sudden, I'm guaranteeing at least an extra two to three hours a day to do this job that I didn't sign up for. This is on top of your day job. Well, you know what? It's not. Because if you do your day job right or we set things up right together, your day job's going to be a lot easier. But you may need to make some initial investment in time, energy, knowledge, what have you to get it going. And then you realize that it's not alone. I use that a lot. It's like, OK. So let's say you're my intended data steward. And I'm trying to convince you that you're already doing this. You already are. Without having to go too deeply, then I can say, oh, but you know what? He's also involved in it as well. So basically what you are doing is you're building that community. And by default, basically you're enlisting everyone who's already involved. It's just you're going to be doing it slightly differently. OK. I can probably ask the room about how many times you've already encountered the data inside of it. There's a lot of people going, yeah. All right. So what you really want to do is try to convince people that it's not your data. It's our data. I know that sounds simplistic, but that's probably one of the most important things, important takeaways. It's this transition from me, I, you, whatever, to ours, us, we. Some of you have seen this before. Actually, most of you probably have seen some version of this. This is kind of the data information knowledge kind of insight. Oh, well, some people call it wisdom. But the whole idea here is that data is the foundation. Even though we're talking about data at this level, we are really talking about, from a governance perspective, it is about the entire stack. Now you know I'm an IT person, because I just used the word stack. But when you actually look at it, it's data that you need, that you not only need to. You need that data to manage that business. You need that data to be analytical enough to be able to improve your business. And ultimately, at the end, it's to grow your business. Now sort of garbage it and garbage out. That's true. So when you're talking about making a case, a value case for data governance, believe me, if you have already things from up here, from a growth perspective that you can leverage and be able to dig down deep enough to get some numbers on the data side, like, oh my god, we just cleansed blah, blah, blah data for the 13th time. First time, oh yeah, it was only $250,000. We got this small little company to go do it. By the 13th time, oh, now it's $5 million. And it's the same thing that we keep cleaning. What's wrong with that? So when you start looking at value, don't think that you only need the big numbers. It's the little stuff that adds up. And how many times something is going on over and over and over again? Pay attention to that. I'm going to keep zooming along here until I get asked a question. So, oh, I just did that, the value proposition, the quick wins and being able to negotiate. You need to know what is the value of that data asset that you have in your hands. And if other people can't see it, you help them see it. Quantify. I hate to say that, but a lot of people are very impressed by numbers. The number of times something happens, oh, X number of dollars, or how many groups, how many lost, these are all important. Figure out what is the return on investment of your data. The win-wins, as we were talking about earlier, quantify those and be able to project out into the future. Yes. I'll cook a session on metrics. But yes, you should. So there are many ways to quantify. Let's just give an example about, let's say, that data cleansing. Oh, oh, OK. We have a real-world interaction here. Yes. Go ahead. Or you can always find out, for example, the example that I mentioned earlier about some sort of data cleansing project or what have you. And you do know, I mean, you do a little research, do a lot of quantifying, even on smaller projects. And then, God forbid, if I get a monthly thing that these folks said, and I won't name the name of the company, but what we had was every monthly clue. And that happened right forward, things like the touch points and where can I, the opportunities for quantifying are. Moving along. OK, we'll talk a little bit about competition for resources. Now, who in the world probably can't see it. Better chance you, at times, and say, OK, wait a minute. This is like 2, 3, whatever, $10 million of what have you. The numbers get much bigger when you actually put it together. We have huge projects. And there's this 350 people working on a particular project. That's a lot of people. But when you actually talk about how many times you have to do a project that was a result of data governance not being in place, you find out that it's a lot more people than that one project. It's a lot of people over time. Business and IT. I've seen both sides. I've seen all sides. I've seen the middle kind of got out of college. My first job was being a user of data. And I couldn't find good quality data. So I decided to switch gears and be an IT person because that's where it was going to be, or at least I thought, that was where all the action was going to be in terms of making a difference. Well, you know what? It's both. You need, as an IT person, you really need to know your business. As a business person, you need to know what your IT is capable of. And as data people, we need to come together to get both groups working together. Because chances are we're either one foot in IT or the other in business, or whatever. At the end of the day, we're the data people. At least I'm hoping that either you are a data person yourself, or you care enough about data to even just be here. More partnering for success. I do believe that it can happen. That business and IT can work together because we have to. The IT folks have the detail level knowledge, or perhaps can help you with tools, selection, et cetera. But at the end of the day, it is about knowing how the pulse of the business works. This is one of, I think, we're getting closer to the end. I'd like to talk about when we build a community of trust, it's kind of this gears working together. It's not one thing. It's not just about education alone. Which, by the way, from a data governance perspective, there's a huge amount of education and training and what have you that needs to be done. Because at the end of the day, we need to be speaking a common language. Whether you're talking to your business partners, or you're talking to your IT partners, the lingo of data and data governance, we need to have the standard of common language. At the end of the day, education enough is not alone. You do need to communicate that. Once you learn something, or once you decide you want to do something, you've got to communicate that out. In addition to communication, you need to be able to collaborate. So what's the good of going to a particular class or pulling together a workshop for us to be speaking the same language if nobody knows? This is, I think, my next to last slide. So this education, communication, and collaboration. And for some of you who may have seen this from a prior talk that I had done, this is something that's very important, or at least I know from living and breathing it that not only a common language, but you need to be able to communicate your strategies, your initiatives, et cetera. And basically, you look for opportunities to collaborate. And there's one couple of words in here that's probably very important, but I probably should highlight it. Whatever it is, make it actionable. Otherwise, you're just a talking hit, right? Like me. You're just a breathing tool. There you go. See people come in and listen to me and go, does she ever do anything for real? Well, yeah, I do. But I try to convince people, this is my evangelism at work here. This is my community service. So good day to governance. If nothing else, take away the fact that you need to communicate business value, educate people. There's some key things here on the governance side here is that really, it's about engagement and alignment. Metrics is important. You need to also be able to measure how successful you are or how successful your program will be. Execution is very important. If you don't act, if you don't do something, people are going to say, well, OK, what have you done? So I'm probably going to stop right here and do a quick time check. I think I see some folks outside there, and I'm done. But what I'd like to do is, for those of you who would like to have a conversation with me or talk further or what have you, please come by. But I think we're supposed to do a room change. So hopefully, this has been interesting enough for you. And we will meet again. All right, thank you. Thank you.