Like a dog chasing the mailman: How to reach out to Data Owners
All Data Governance practitioners agree that getting senior business stakeholders to take ownership of data is crucial for ensuring a successful and enduring Data Governance implementation.
These stakeholders are inherently important and busy people with important and busy schedules, so it can be slightly intimidating to reach out to them – especially for something as stuffy as Data Governance.
However, while a healthy dose of professionalism and respect is good, too often this turns into an outright fear of ever reaching out to the potential Data Owners, because people are worried about rejection.
So, like a dog chasing the mailman, not really knowing what to do with him if it should ever catch up, many Data Governance teams are stuck in a loop, perpetually analyzing and preparing approaches and scenarios, but never really getting around to actually making the first move.
This is easy to avoid. In fact, if you follow these steps, you will end up with a compelling case that will open the door to most Data Owners.
Use your mandate: When you have come to this point in your Data Governance journey, you likely have some kind of Data Governance Council, or at least an executive sponsor. Align with the council where the next focus area is, and who might be good candidates to take ownership. The last part is especially critical for large cross-organizational elements such as product, customer or commercial data.
Document the lay of the land: Interview various stakeholders across the value chain who have a stake in the data. Use these to get a sense of what works well, and what could be better from a data point of view. Be careful not to fall in the “this is something we ought to do”-trap. If you can’t make a case for why the data owner should care, it is probably not a great case.
Build a coalition of allies: Few people can own a large data domain on their own, and practically no one is willing to do so. Create a short-list of other decision makers to support the Data Owner on a Data Forum. These should be mid-level to senior stakeholders across the organization who have an interest in the data domain, who have a broad network, and who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves.
Polish the pain points: Select a small handful of data-related challenges and describe how they bleed over and becomes actual inhibitors for where the business wants to go, or where they are today. Ideally, these are close to the Data Owners’ heart. This needs to be sharp and crisp, so if you have anyone on your team role-playing as Management Consultants, this is where you bring them out.
Set clear expectations: Make it very clear what support and services the Data Owner can expect from you, as well as what you expect from them. Are you going to be facilitating the Data Forum meetings? Will they have to find Data Stewards? Is there a central data cleansing team, or are they on their own? These are all questions that you should consider before knocking on the door.
Make a plan: If you have a Data Owner worth their salt, and you haven’t completely screwed up the presentation, the last thing they will say is. “OK, what happens next?”. Therefore, you need to make sure you have a plan for how to proceed once the Data Owner is on board. It needs to be concrete and tangible and shouldn’t have a two-month gap in the start where you find out what to do.
And there you have it. Following these steps works with the vast majority of Data Owners, and depending on your resources, it can be done within a couple of weeks.
Do you have a hard time getting through to your Data Owners? Reach out to Bang Insights and book a free 30-minute data call for sparring on how to tell a story that resonates.