The Buck Stops Here: 5 reasons why Data Ownership is crucial to Data Management success

The different Roles and Responsibilities within Data Governance and Data Management have always been the cause of a lot of scrutiny and confusion (case in point: The Data Steward role which has been discussed in the past)

However, recently the role of the Data Owner has caught a lot of flak in the Data Governance community, with some voices arguing that it is altogether obsolete.

I spent yesterday evening thinking about the role of the Data Owner, why it is still very relevant, and how I have seen it used in the different Data Governance projects I have worked on in the past (as well as the issues I have seen where no Data Owners exist). Here are five things I came up with:

Lack of decision-making power: There is one sentence I hear so often in companies with a struggling Data Governance effort which has a few years under the belt: “Well, we have data forums, but the participants are mainly specialists, and they have good discussions and recommendations, but they don’t really have the authority to make any meaningful decisions”. So while you need a way for specialists to meet and align, more senior stakeholders are absolutely necessary to really tie the organization together.

Linking to business priorities: It is possible that there are companies that have so much money, so many people and so little imagination that they can easily execute on all the ideas, plans and projects that they come up with. But for the remaining 99,9% of companies, resources are scarce, time is of the essence, and everyone are fighting for their own agenda. This means that all decisions on what to do from a Data Management point of view must be linked to a business priority, which should ideally be high on a Data Owners’ radar. If you don’t have that, discussions about what to do just deteriorates into people’s different opinions.

Allocating resources: It’s not enough to bring a case that makes sense, or even to define a new data standard that improves the status quo. When specialists come up with a standard that is going to change how people work, define changes to IT systems, and probably require a lot of historic data cleansing, someone will eventually ask the question: “Where’s the money Lebowski?!?”. You can argue all day about different funding models, but essentially someone high up the food chain needs to agree that the suggestion is valid and valuable, and give the green light that time and money is spent on it.

Enforcing decisions: When decisions are made and the rubber meets the road, you need Data Ownership more than ever. Many people can agree on new data standards on a conceptual level, but when you get to the point where people have to change the way they work, things tend to get difficult. My recommendation is to set up a Data Forum with representatives across the business (read more about how that’s done here) who can communicate and enforce what needs to be done. After all, this is data governance, there are rules!

Ensuring strategic links: People often ask: “why would you appoint just one Data Owner when the data goes across the value chain?”. One very good reason for doing this is that it gives you a single point of accountability. If you have a Data Governance Council (and you definitely should), linking Data Ownership with the broader Data Governance plan and roadmap, enables you to track progress and maturity. This means that even if some of the Data Owners may be nihilists who don’t believe in Data Governance, they still have to be active players on the journey.

So, don’t let anyone tell you that, Data Ownership is obsolete, on the contrary it is more relevant than ever. If you are struggling to get the attention of a potential Data Owner, have a look at my guide on how to reach out to them.

Are you having a hard time finding and onboarding the right Data Owners? Reach out and book a free 30-minute data call, to get sparring on how to break through.