WHAT IS DATA GOVERNANCE (One Pager to Executives)

Decision makers do not control the company, the Data they use to make their decisions does. This makes Data Governance the single most fundamental building block of any company. Data can come from people speaking or technologies providing output.

Data is simply MEANING which is encapsulated in some STRUCTURE that is stored or transferred via a MEDIUM.

Data is not just in electronic devices. If we were standing face to face talking you would have to encapsulate the Meaning in your mind of what you want to communicate and put it in the Structure of a common spoken language and then transfer it to me via the Medium of sound waves. I would then receive the Structure of the common spoken language and then decode the Meaning by relating the Structure to my own understanding of the common spoken language. Hopefully I wold get that right.

The Structures of our spoken and written languages change (as do the Structures of the many technology “languages”. This means that the Meaning is subject to decay as the Structures remain constrained in a changing environment. This fact means that all data, to greater and lesser degrees are perishables.

As we communicate, human-to-human, human-to-machine, machine-to-machine and machine-to-human, these perishable Structures are laid down in layers, in memory, both in humans and technologies, like the different coloured sediment in the bottles you find for sale in curio shops.

Time and Space cannot hold data as it is forever flowing through different Structures and Mediums, you only have to have played "broken telephone" once to know the outcome. Managing Data is easy. But Governing it in terms of Time and Space to maintain the Meanings is a significant challenge. Without this Governance of data, getting a report from the data, to provide an accurate and true reflection of the correctly accumulated and assembled Meanings of the data is highly unlikely and a risk not worth taking.

While some companies wade through sluggishly, using up to 20% of wasted Gross Income in addressing fallout from poor data, others have restructured their business to move through it like it was water. Those who have evolved have found that they can use their quality, secure, well-architected data, within a governed environment to enhance the success and competitive advantage.

For those Boards of Directors and Executive Committees who have chosen to commercialise their data, please note that no one wants to buy “Sick” Data. Soon those commercialising “Sick” Data will be paying compensation, either to repair damage others have suffered, or in loss of market share as their customers learn that the company they rely on to the deliver the products and services that they have been consuming, cannot be trusted to be a good custodian of their Data. It begs the question of the quality of the service and/or products they are consuming, and couldn’t the opposition provide better quality for their own customers to consume.

As an analogy, Data Governance is ensuring that the windscreen you are using to navigate your “bus” is displaying the Truth of what you are making your decisions on. If your "windscreen" displays that you have an open road ahead of you and actually you are about to lose all your shareholders value by driving the “bus” over the "cliff", you will do so smiling all the way looking at “the open road” displayed on your "windscreen" until all reputations are tarnished and the “bus” is destroyed. Recovery from such an incident, especially with the advent of King IV, and other regulations, may result in significant penalties and possible jail time for those who turned a blind eye.

In truth Data Governance is simply knowing and controlling all the influences that can positively and negatively affect how your company receives/creates, stores, uses, commercialises, and eventually archives (retaining the ability to preserve the Meaning, keeping it relevant across Time), and then later destroys the data, knowing full well there is evidence of the data all along its many paths of travel to be considered. 

Throughout the entire process of Data Governance of both the Data and its Life cycle, three key data disciplines must be designed and implemented in such a way that they are integrated to work as one unit, pervasively across the enterprise, to protect the MEANINGS, STRUCTURES and MEDIUMS across TIME and SPACE.

The three Key Data Disciplines are:

1. Data Architecture, to make "The Invisible" Data "Visible" to work with,

2. Data Security, to maintain the Integrity of both the Data and the environments within which the data operates, to the level of security required at each specific point of the Data's travel or stay through various Mediums of People and Technologies and the various decision points that guide the data through the Integration and Interfaces which carry them.

3. Data Quality, to ensure that the environment that interacts with the data can do so with minimal risk of corruption of the environment. The enterprise can be destroyed by the data flowing through it, just as Leukemia destroys a human body, as the infected blood travels through the body. The decisions taken, either automatically or through people will destroy or build your company.

Every Data Management Effort made by an enterprise requiring data or managing data relies on this foundation being intact and fully functional. If you have failed Data Implementations take a second look at the health and maturity and construction of your Data Governance.

I am currently available for Consulting should anyone require a Data Governance Maturity Assessment or Implementation. williamevans@multidimensionalthinkers.com

I use “The Data Atom” Data Management Framework, which can be found on my Website www.multidimensionalthinkers.com. The framework and notes will give you some insights, however, the order of implementation, and the maturity assessment required to ensure that the company does not waste valuable competitive advantage in terms of time and resources is what I can offer. I provide Consulting, Training and Testing of Data Stewards.

May the most effective and efficient enterprise win. All the best

Kind regards

William Evans (CEO: Multi Dimensional Thinkers (Pty) LTD)