Welcome to the first edition of the Enterprise Data Journal, and thank you from the outset for taking a look at our new venture. Please continue reading!  We hope you will find that EDJ has a unique mission and value proposition. 

We do not intend to duplicate the excellent work that is already being done by the other online trade publications in the data, information, and knowledge areas.  Rather, we hope you’ll think of us as a focused, data-specialized business journal, ideally in the mold of the Harvard Business Review but on a more modest scale.  We will for example, be lending a very strong business emphasis to our content.  Our intention is that our articles will be just as easily read by a non-technical CXO as by an information strategy or data warehouse manager.  Indeed, we’d like to be a bridge between those roles whenever possible.  Our articles will be pithy and direct, written for rapid consumption and maximum business impact.

Each issue will have a primary topic focus.  We will also provide a research basis for many of our articles, and most issues will report a dimension of data strategy from a surveyed, qualitative and quantitative perspective.  We will follow this evidence and be as fair and candid in our commentary as it allows, be it best practice, or glaring deficiency. 

Our goal is to improve the success rate of strategic, data-centric projects.  This means information management, data governance, corporate directories, knowledge management and the like.  We firmly believe that, while many great strides have been made in data strategy and information usage, there is a great deal of room for  progress.

After each issue of this journal, we want you to come away feeling that you have learned something and have a positive action to take.  Perhaps you can even let us know how we have helped.

So thank you again.  Please, read on, enjoy, and let us know how we are doing. 

In This Issue…

We start our journal by introducing a series of articles by Chunka Mui to set the stage for the various topics we will be covering.  You may or may not agree with everything said, but it is thought provoking. 

This inaugural issue focuses on data governance.  Data governance is H O T.  At a recent conference on data governance, 40% of the attendees declared themselves as representing a business orientation, rather than an IT orientation.  Many of the business people in attendance presented profound motivations (such as SEC audits, loss of customers due to data quality, and inaccurate regulatory reports) for better data governance programs.  They also declared after the conference that, in spite of a series of excellent presentation and insightful tutorials, no one can tell them in a succinct form what data governance really is.  It is one of those amorphous ideas that we know we need (we think) and need a road map to, but exactly what we see along the way is open to debate.  There are profound similarities with “doing” data governance and doing other information management programs, but there are also some differences that make data governance such a fascinating topic. 

The first article will present a list of definitions from various sources, and attempt to consolidate them into a statement of direction or a set of parameters for a relevant definition of data governance that you can apply within your specific organization. 

Then David Schlesinger sheds some light on the various challenges of data governance.  Why, if it has a lot of similarities with other initiatives and programs, is it so hard??? 

The next article, by Graeme Simsion, starts a series of columns on getting new programs going THE RIGHT WAY.  As we looked at our editorial calendar for the coming issues, we noticed many topics that feature the need for a sound consultative approach.  Therefore welcome Graeme as our mentor for getting stuff done.  (I don’t think Graeme will answer e mail in regards to better entertaining or a nicer garden, but he sure knows his consulting).

Occasionally, and in this issue, we will dip into the twisted minds of our editorial team and present a visual statement of our research.  Other people call these symbolic representations “cartoons” but this is a Journal.

Finally, we interviewed a success story of data governance (Wachovia), It was a great interview and offers some great insights.

Observations

I am very fortunate to be able to observe the information industry from a variety of angles.  Recent experience with a firm dealing in highly regulated businesses allowed me to observe first-hand the cost and risks in business where information can get a company into a lot of trouble.  There is even joking about a new ROI on information – Risk of Incarceration.  One would think that investment and more importantly, attention, towards managing data would therefore be improving.  Alas, that is not so.  During a recent data governance conference I polled attendees in my class and specifically asked them about their business problems around data.  Many of them wrote down something similar to this:  “Our business problem is poor access to accurate data.” 

There is a lot of insight to be found in this remark.  First, this is not a statement of a business problem.  I submit that many middle managers do not know how to state a business problem.  This goes for IT and line management as well.  Second, it indicated a limited knowledge and view of the real problems.  I hear this again and again; the many variations of the poor business alignment issue.  If the people who have to deliver the mail do not have a good feel for the real issues and opportunities, how can they respond effectively?  This is an upper management issue.  It speaks of poor communication, poor change management, and poor knowledge. 

One manager we talked to who reported less than stellar results, phrased it this way:

“We discovered that strong leadership was huge success factor.  Wishy washy management will get you wishy washy results    For example, you  need good vision – solid vision of roles, rewards, processes. This was evidenced several ways:

We needed a better funding model.  The traditional funding process through IT project budgeting placed governance into the mill with other “projects.”  This is the wrong view of governance.  There was no accountability or visibility – so when the program did fall short, no one was able to, nor did they want to,  step up.
 
We also canvassed many other professionals on this topic.  Practitioners, almost across the board, placed a definition of data governance as being important.  Other success factors basically reflected the comment from the aforementioned manager, and included the management of change, an effective organizational structure, and having a business driver or support of data governance that allowed for enforcement and accountability.

The solution appears to be more transparency toward those that can execute from above.  Furthermore, those that have to deliver projects and programs need to make darn sure that they hear a business problem and align with the business before they start buying software and hardware.

About the Author

John Ladley

John Ladley is an internationally known information management practitioner and a popular speaker on information and knowledge management.  John is widely published and has several regular columns.  Until recently, John was a Director with Navigant Consulting.  Prior to Navigant, John founded KI Solutions, and John was Senior Program Director of Data Warehouse strategies and a Research Fellow at Meta Group.  Mr. Ladley is an authority on information architectures, business performance measurement architectures, knowledge management, collaborative applications, and information resource management.  John is currently President of IMCue Solutions, a new firm focused on data governance and information management.