How to do Data Ownership

Do you have a problem with data ownership in your organisation?

• You have some data owners in place, but they don't cover all the data in your organisation

• There are some people assigned to the role of data owner, but they aren't doing much in that respect

• You've tried to give people the role of data owner, but they push back from accepting it

• Someone has advised that data ownership as a concept doesn't work, so it's been abandoned

• A data ownership structure was put in place, but certain individuals have moved on from the firm or changed roles, and the whole thing has fizzled out

Whatever the reason is that you are not seeing a successful data ownership culture, let's go back to first principles and build up from there.

• Why do we want to have Data Ownership?

• How do we make it happen?

• How do we get people engaged in making it a success?

• How do we maintain success?

Why do we want to have Data Ownership?

Organisations succeed by making good decisions. Good data (and we'll ignore what "good" means for now) will help them to achieve that.

To have "good data", we'll need to know

• What data we have

• Where it is

• What it means

• What to do when it's not good enough

People play a key part in each of these. It's people who we work with, that will know (or be able to find out) all of these.

But we can't email the entire organisation every time we have a data question, so we need to have some established contacts who are ready, willing and able to help.

I refer to this as the Data Community, which is made of up Data Leaders, Data Owners and Data Stewards.

• Data Leaders are senior colleagues who sponsor the data governance activity but have less involvement day to day.

• Data Owners are responsible for data governance activity taking place.

• Data Stewards are typically subject matter experts and are operationally responsible for the data.

I first posted the following on LinkedIn several years ago, but it's as true today as it always was.

However, I'm not a fan of giving the role a new label as that just confuses things further. I prefer to accept the standard language (unless your particular organisation has a real problem with using it, maybe due to previous failures) and implement it well.

So that's why we want data owners.

How do we make it happen?

To do this, we need to:

• Find the right people

• Get them to take on the role

• Ensure that they are adding value in that role

“Top down” works better than “bottom up”, because most organisations work through senior colleagues delegating work.

So first engage the Leaders. The Leaders identify the Owners. The Owners assign the Stewards.

Data Leaders need to be engaged by someone who is at least a peer of theirs. Don’t ask by email! Colleagues at this level need to be briefed face-to-face. The remote equivalent would be a 1-1 meeting.

In this meeting, the Leaders are guided in identifying their Data Owners. You then have a foothold with the Owners as they know that they have been asked to do this by a senior colleague.

Similarly, the Data Owners are guided to identify their stewards.

This approach gets you past a significant barrier, which is when your potential data owners don't feel able to take on the role. This isn't just because they don't want to take on additional responsibilities (although that might be a concern) but it may be that they feel that they aren't senior enough to be responsible for data in their domain.

This way, they have a clear steer from their manager or leadership that they are suitable for the role.

How do we get people engaged in making it a success?

Consider yourself in the shoes of the Data Owner. What benefits may they gain?

• Career benefits from this additional role and responsibility

• Colleagues less likely to use their data without their engagement

• Will become aware of any issues with the data

• Understanding of who is using their data and why - network benefits

I have found that many elements of Data Governance are, when explained clearly, value adding and appreciated by colleagues in the business. However, they are not activities which are "obvious" or which people would have introduced by themselves.

This speaks to the importance of providing training which is specific and focused. One to one conversations are ideal, but value can still be gained from group training sessions.

You need to clearly explain what you need from your Data Owners; how they can do it; and how they will benefit.

How do we maintain success?

This is the element which, all too often, gets missed. We are great in putting projects in place to be ready for regulatory or legal requirements, but then the project concludes and the activities drift away.

Data Governance is not a project, it's a BAU activity!

People will only continue to carry out their activities if there is a benefit in doing so. This will likely play out through:

• Data issues being raised and addressed

• New data being effectively integrated and managed

• Data owners working together to collaboratively manage the organisation's data

I'll add that the central data function also plays a part here, by maintaining a tracker of the data owners and which domains they cover, but if those owners are not engaged in any data activity, then that's a strong indicator that our ownership model is not working effectively.

Recognise this and act promptly!

Summary

• We considered why we even want to have Data Ownership.

• We got people into Data Ownership roles.

  We engaged them in making it a success.

• We considered how to maintain that success.

Additional reading - in this article I discuss how we bring Data Owners, and other stakeholders, together into a Data Committee.

If you want to improve the engagement of your data owners, you know where to come.

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Have a wonderful week,
Charles