The Datavision Governance Contest

The Datavision Governance Contest

A change in direction this week, in honour of Eurovision being hosted in my home town of Liverpool. 

Host: Welcome to the Data Governance Vision Datafest/Contest

Tonight, we welcome data professionals from around the globe to discover the best of data governance approach of them all.

The camera pans to a child prodding at a touchscreen.

As she does so, multiple windows appear, with dashboards, charts and tables in multiple colours, flashing and blinking.

The screen splits in two to reveal a phalanx of dancers, each holding a pole. On the end of each pole is the logo of a different tech vendor.

The dancers form the shape of a histogram.

Then a few of them acrobatically leap into the air- it's a bar chart.

Finally, they come together to form a 3d pie chart.

The crowd goes wild.

The stage clears and the first participant is ready to go.

He's not experienced in data governance, but was the winner of the "search for a data star" competition held amongst the graduate recruits in his company.

He's nervous, but doing his best to hide it.

He begins by profiling the data. He finds many data sets which are inconsistent, and uses an AI-based tool to clean much of it up. A data quality dashboard is generated, showing the data quality before and after his work. With a flourish, he delivers the dashboard to the judges.

The lights move to contestant two. We see a tower of paper. As the music picks up, a figure emerges from the stacks of documentation.

Titles are revealed to us - Data Policy, Data Strategy, DQ Manual - and many more.

The contestant artfully reveals a USB stick, which contains all of his documentation. He hands it to the judges. They can't open it because the network is blocked to external storage devices.

Somehow, without us noticing, the second contestant has disappeared into the background.

Contestant three looks confident. The camera focuses on her and follows as she turns around to her backing performers.

Sharpie pens and post it notes cascade from high above the stage.

They are conducting a workshop.

Viewers watch the pink, green and yellow of the post it notes twirl around the performers, forming a coloured block which grows along the side of the stage.

The three minute slot comes to an end with the block of notes continuing to grow.

Next up are two people dressed up as a dog and a cat.

The commentary team explain that they are from a pet business and was the clear favourite when they held their internal competition to find an approach to data.

We hear the sounds of woofs, miaows and more, but it's not clear what is going on.

The fifth set of competitors are also data profiling, but their tool is not as advanced as the first entrant, and the routine lacks sparkle.

Sixth up and there is lots of excitement. This team have entered one of the world's leading data experts. They have sold out conferences from Tokyo to Tehran and everyone is wondering what they will come up with for this competition.

It is a new routine, but it has a lot of resemblance to the massive hit that they had in Sydney a few years ago. No one can argue with its excellence, but the local audience are a little deflated.

The hosts return to the stage

Wow! What a show!

Six approaches to data governance, but only one winner.

Voting is…open!

The commentator picks up as the screen shows a short excerpt from each of the entries.

Voting is open to all readers of the #datazedofdatagovernance newsletter.

They can enter whether viewing on email, the datazed.beehiiv.com website, or on the simul-broadcast on LinkedIn.

Here to help you is a reminder of each of the entries:

1. Get the latest tech. Profile the data. Clean the data. Show your results.

2. Create your documentation. Ensure that everything is covered off.

3. Conduct interviews and workshops with your stakeholders. It's all about engagement.

4. Develop an approach which aligns with the specific organisation you are in. Focus.

5. Don't waste money on fancy solutions. Code your rules and use manual processes, or Excel, to profile and clean the data. Show your results.

6. Find an approach which works really well. Then repeat. Tried and tested.

Don't delay - voting closes soon!

At Datazed, we can chat about Eurovision with you; or we can help you with data governance and data quality. Your pick!

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Have a wonderful week,
Charles