Is your Data Committee going to be banned?

I posted this question on LinkedIn this week and, as promised, readers of this newsletter get to find out my thoughts first! To recap:

In an attempt to “purge” employees’ calendars, the e-commerce company Shopify said it’s banning recurring meetings with three or more people, limiting big meetings to one per week, and urging staff to turn down other meeting requests.

How does your Data Committee survive?

It's a recurring meeting with at least three people.

If it's considered to be a big meeting, then if one a week is permitted, then you get four per month. How do you get a data meeting in the "top 4" monthly meetings?

Staff are urged to turn down meeting requests if they don't feel the need to attend. Isn't that an easy way for them to avoid a meeting about data?

I suggested that this is an exercise in working out why your Data Committee is important, and how you ensure that your key stakeholders feel the same way.

What's a Data Committee and Why Do I Even Need One?

A data committee, which you might also call a Data Board or Data Forum, is responsible for key decisions around data usage and investment. It includes the key Data Owners plus representation from the Data Function and other key stakeholders such as IT, Legal and significant change projects.

I'd like to refer you to an article I wrote about data committees, but maybe you'll get distracted by that and not read this one, so I'll make you a deal and put the link at the end. That way you don't get distracted and this email doesn't get skipped.

Okay? Let's carry on.

Understand the motivations

It's easy to jump straight in to thinking about how important your data committee is, but you would be struggling to solve the problem when you don't understand what caused it. Fortunately, Shopify have been quite explicit about this.

Not everyone agrees, and some think that it's about giving an impression of being "big and visionary" rather than actually leading, but let's hold that and work with the challenge set to us.

• Shopify are saying that meetings are unproductive;

• That they take time away from employees to focus on their work (implying that the meeting isn't their work); and that

• They want it to feel chaotic as part of the way Shopify operate.

The last item feels bespoke to a particular type of organisation but the primary point is that time in a meeting is not viewed as time working.

On the other hand, I wrote about that the data committee is for key decisions around data usage and investment. That is important!

Maybe it's not a standard business education text, but Johnny Cash's song, The Gambler does help us to consider our options.

What are we going to throw away and what are we going to keep?

He continues:

Know when to hold

We may decide that we need to find a way to keep our Data Committee. The constraints above are tight, so we are going to have to do an excellent job of demonstrating its value.

Moreover, we don't just have to discuss that there is some value, but that there is more value than any other meeting or use of that time.

Data committees which are already delivering effectively are best placed here, because the attendees know why they are there; what they want to get done; and can be confident that the effort is worthwhile.

If they are productive and, through their outputs, take away work from people, then they will want to attend and you will be back in the calendar.

Recall that even if you can get back in the calendar, it's not mandatory for people to show up.

Know when to fold

Alternatively, you may choose to give up the Data Committee and find other ways to achieve its objectives.

Can we achieve our objectives in some other way?

• Could the CDO or Head of Data could take more decisions, with the most significant ones being directed to the OpCo, ExCo or Board?

• Could you use asynchronous communication such as Slack to put out questions and let people respond over a period of time?

• Do we need to look at KPIs in a meeting, or is it sufficient to provide access to a dashboard and rely on stakeholders to use it?

If your committee has been in place for an extended time, then this thought process could be helpful to ensure that your meetings don't run simply because you "do this every month".

Know when to walk away

Walk away from the challenge. Important meetings stay in the diary and your Data Committee is one of the most important meetings of all.

Alternatively, you can try and operate "under the radar" using the principles of "non-invasive data governance".

I find it hard to recommend this approach. In the short term, you might keep your meeting running, but you are now diverging from the way that company seeks to operate. That's going to impact your credibility and effectiveness in the future.

Know when to run

The last option and probably the least helpful, but if you have a responsibility for data and are actively hindered from delivery, then you may want to consider your future in the organisation.

Abandon the sinking ship!

In summary

Ways of working are continuing to change. We've already moved from being in the office every day to a home-based or hybrid basis, and that means that our interactions will change as well.

We can no longer rely on "water-cooler conversations" and even meetings now operate differently with some or all of the attendees attending remotely.

Schumpeter's creative destruction describes the process that sees new innovations replacing existing ones that are rendered obsolete over time.

By understanding what benefits we gain from a Data Committee, and what methods we can use to achieve them, we can be productive, without being chaotic.

Have a wonderful week,

Charles

P.S. Here's the link to my article on effective Data Governance Committees that I promised.

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