2022 wrapped with Datazed

In the past six months, I've been putting a lot more energy into creating Data Governance content - both online and in person - and it's been really rewarding to engage with new people and old friends in the data community.

Thanks to all of you who have worked with me, joined my email list, followed or connected with me on LinkedIn, or even just reacted to a post. The interaction is what makes it worthwhile.

July

In July, we kicked off the Data Governance Get Togethers. The idea of this group was that, whilst data leaders are invited to a whole range of events and conferences, there is not much available for practitioners in the field.

At the first session, hosted at AEGIS London, we shared experiences on manual mapping and automation; the breadth and depth of data lineages; and one of our group gave us a fantastic example of evidencing RoI from his Data Lineage activity.

August

We went online in August and discussed Data Dictionaries, Data Directories and Business Glossaries.

It was striking how much variance there is in the way that data governance and data quality are organised. Different ways of working have come about due to:

- The maturity of the data function in the business;

- The history of legacy data activities and the backgrounds of the individuals who set it up; and

- The main focus and purposes of the data activity such as Solvency II or Finance Transformation.

We also talked about the interactions with Data Privacy, InfoSec and Data Access Management.

October

September's event was postponed as London came to a halt, following the passing of HM The Queen, but we roared back in October at the offices of Inigo to talk about Data Governance tooling.

We discussed the ins and outs of

- implementing a Data Governance framework and then adopting tooling as the activity matured;

- against getting the tools in place as part of the initial roll out project;

- and also where the Data Governance have inherited tools from previous projects or other parts of the corporate group.

The conversation widened to consider Data Governance sponsorship and motivating factors for those sponsors; the length of a Data Policy; and the challenges that arise when your colleagues are simply too nice!

November

This was our first hybrid event - both online and in person - and we also broadened the invitation to all people interested in data governance, beyond the insurance community.

Guest speaker Neil Burge, over from Singapore, treated us to a discussion on "The human side of data governance - how you actually get people engaged". I've uploaded a recording of this (audio only) onto my channel at youtube.com/@datazed and the write up is available on request.

We covered topics as diverse as

🏋 Going to the Data Management gym

👷‍♀️ The D-suite at your company

🗣 Measuring how much you speak during a meeting

As well as receiving several book recommendations.

In November I also kicked off a weekly email newsletter, and you can find all the past editions at https://datazed.beehiiv.com/ 

I also started a LinkedIn newsletter which now has over 400 subscribers. The first edition was on How do you set up and run an effective Data Governance Committee? and this was followed by 32 ways to succeed with data​: Lessons from the teams at the 2022 World Cup 

I started a series of LinkedIn polls that matched up the data insights to World Cup matches, with the aim of finding out the "winning" tip, but it got very little engagement so I quietly dropped it.

Not every plan works!

December

In December, procurement expert Daniel Abda, joined me for a lunchtime webinar on How to choose a data solution and get it procured.

The whole 50 minute video is up on the @datazed YouTube channel and I also posted a couple of clips onto LinkedIn

• Daniel chose our discussion about how to run a procurement process when you don't have a procurement team

• I chose an excerpt about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) where we discuss how it's not all about the headline cost.

On a business level, Datazed partnered with Pyramid Analytics and I'll be taking part in their Decision Intelligence Directors Series on Tuesday, 10 January at 4pm.

2023 and beyond

My new year's resolution will be about consistency, with the plan being

• Email newsletter every week - sign up here and find past editions here.

• The LinkedIn newsletter, where I go deeper into a single topic, on a monthly basis.

• Online sessions for anyone in the Data Governance world on a monthly basis.

• In person get togethers for the Insurance Data Governance community on a quarterly basis.

  • Updates on these sessions are included in my weekly newsletters.

If your new year plans involve a new role, have you ever considered becoming an Associate of Datazed?

Maybe you are a contractor or independent consultant looking for more work.

Perhaps you are looking for a perm role but would like to deliver some projects whilst you are in the job hunt.

It could even be that you are retired and would like some occasional work.

We focus on Data Governance and Data Quality (hopefully that is obvious by now!) and want to work with people who have proven experience of successful delivery.

Check out the video and if this could work for you, get in touch.

All that remains is to wish you a happy holiday season, and a fantastic 2023!

Best wishes,

Charles