Introduction
Getting buy-in from the business to your Data Governance initiate is imperative. However, it is very difficult to get buy-in from people who don’t understand what you are doing; education is a key success factor in data governance change management.
I’m not convinced it worked for him, however at the risk of quoting Tony Blair when he stepped into office,
“Education, Education, Education”
I do know for a fact though that this mantra will work for your Data Governance program.
BTW: With reference to Jim @ ocdqblog, I am taking a stab at brevity here, I’ll try to keep this post at around 500 words …
Education?
I am using the term ‘education’ here, rather than ‘training’ as we need to focus on increasing the knowledge and understanding of data governance across the enterprise; it is not just about putting someone in a classroom or in front of a PC and training them on a process and/or software application.
Education is vital in driving data governance to the front line, allowing the people to own the data. Widening the enterprises understanding of the need, risks, impact and benefits of data governance will smooth the path to success and ensure that they continue to follow that path as they do ‘do’ data governance.
What education?
I mentioned training, which is important for those with every day hands on interaction with any new software that may be deployed. However increasing the ‘enterprise IQ’ on data governance takes more than training; you need to take education on the road, spread the word across every organization. Utilize all the resources you have at your disposal in sharing your knowledge.
These are some of the examples of how you can use current education methods to educate the enterprise:
Pro-active education -
- Classroom based formal education – role based education, new staff inductions, management courses
- Desk based education – e-training guides, can be included in compliance or skill refresher courses
- Workshop based – Road-shows and detailed workshops, look out for organization get-togethers and piggyback on them
Re-active education -
- On the job education – be part of the role based ‘work manuals’
- Knowledge transfer – select key individuals in departments that can educate peers
- Remedial education – through monitoring identify areas and resources that need re-education or assistance
‘Subliminal’ education -
- Application screens and text reminders and guides
- Work based magazines and articles
- ‘Intranet’ screens and ‘adverts’
Education aims
It is important to set clear goals for the education, I’ve come across deployments that have ‘train the users in Data Governance’ included in the scope of their project, it needs to be more specific than that. We should look to include some if not all of the following objectives in the education scope:
- People understand the need for data governance and data quality
- People understand the impact of inferior data
- People understand the data governance processes
- People understand the information in context
- Most importantly people understand both the positive and negative impact of data governance and data quality on themselves.
Conclusion
Educating the enterprise in the need, benefits, impact and risks of Data Governance is a ‘must have’ requirement in any Data Governance initiative. Having knowledgeable resources across the data life-cycle not only provides a foundation for change management success, but it ensures ongoing benefit recognition as your data governance processes and procedures move to in-life.
Nice post Charles.
I particularly liked the way you broke down the channels of education, it is so important to meet people where they’re at, dragging people in for a two day workshop is not always the best approach, we have to be creative.
I think education is so powerful because if we look at the classic drivers for creating change then education plays a key role in each of them (sense of urgency, capacity to change, clear shared vision etc.)
Continual education is also one of the essential components for ensuring the business doesn’t backslide into their old practices.
Great post and the new blog theme is a joy to read, are you turning into a minimalist Charles?
Me again…sorry, another reason I like this post is your points at the end about understanding, this is so important, so many times I’ve seen people simply nod their head in agreement but when you dig deeper you realise the level of understanding is far below that of agreement.
Unless people understand AND agree, you’ve often got an impossible hill to climb.
Wow, 2 comments Dylan!, thanks they are much appreciated. And yes, I’m definitely going down the minimalist route
One thing I did leave off was to ‘educate the educators’, ensuring that data governance is covered at every level in the staff education process.
“Education, Education, Education”
Great post Charles,
As you said, education (and not just training) is essential.
Too often, the focus is on simply training – what are the steps I must follow, how do I avoid getting yelled at by my boss – give me a fancy certificate to hang on my cubicle wall and let me go back to updating my Facebook status.
True education requires focusing on explaining why things like data governance and data quality are important. Training provides useful skills. Education provides meaningful ideas. Training teaches you how to do something. Education teaches you to understand something.
We can train a computer (i.e., code a program) to check for data quality problems. We need to educate humans why this is necessary – at least until the machines achieve sentience
Cheers,
Jim
P.S. As for brevity, my latest blog post was over 1600 words – “summarizing” an eight part series, but still over 1600 words – what’s that old saying – do as I say, not as I blog…
Thanks for your comments Jim, I like the statement ‘Education teaches you to understand something’
RE: machines achieving sentience, when they do, are we out of a job, or can we just pretend we are working at let the machines do it all