Is Data Governance on a collision course with Corporate Governance? I submit it may be. The rationale is that the following perceptions (fair or unfair, true or false) will take root at the executive level:
– Data Governance focuses on technology – data catalogs.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not do effective data policy work.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not communicate.
– Data Governance is not attuned to administration of a steady state, but prefers projects that build.
– Data Governance tends to ask for requirements rather than lead.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not coordinate data needs among the horizontal (corporate) functions (e.g. Legal, Risk, InfoSec, Procurement, etc.).
If executives embrace the importance of data, but have the above perceptions, they will likely send the data catalog administration to IT, and give the core Data Governance responsibilities to a unit that is more aligned to governance in general, e.g. Risk. And Data Governance will get much more integrated with the structures and processes of Corporate Governance as a whole.
My Take
Excellent post, Malcolm Chisholm Ph.D.
Data governance and, by extension, corporate governance have nothing to do with technology, and the IT department should not lead related initiatives. I say this after 40-plus years in high tech and procurement.
However, executive leadership’s insistence on driving such initiatives using a tech-led equation-based rather than an agent-based model and the resulting disconnect will continue to produce a high generational initiative failure rate of 80%.
Check out the following article and related DND case study.
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Procurement Insights
What role should the IT department play in an organization’s “data modernization” initiatives?
Posted on November 1, 2024
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Is Data Governance on a collision course with Corporate Governance? I submit it may be. The rationale is that the following perceptions (fair or unfair, true or false) will take root at the executive level:
– Data Governance focuses on technology – data catalogs.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not do effective data policy work.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not communicate.
– Data Governance is not attuned to administration of a steady state, but prefers projects that build.
– Data Governance tends to ask for requirements rather than lead.
– Data Governance does not know how to / will not coordinate data needs among the horizontal (corporate) functions (e.g. Legal, Risk, InfoSec, Procurement, etc.).
If executives embrace the importance of data, but have the above perceptions, they will likely send the data catalog administration to IT, and give the core Data Governance responsibilities to a unit that is more aligned to governance in general, e.g. Risk. And Data Governance will get much more integrated with the structures and processes of Corporate Governance as a whole.
My Take
Excellent post, Malcolm Chisholm Ph.D.
Data governance and, by extension, corporate governance have nothing to do with technology, and the IT department should not lead related initiatives. I say this after 40-plus years in high tech and procurement.
However, executive leadership’s insistence on driving such initiatives using a tech-led equation-based rather than an agent-based model and the resulting disconnect will continue to produce a high generational initiative failure rate of 80%.
Check out the following article and related DND case study.
30
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