Once you have identified your governance use cases and your maturity level, you need to turn them into a case that others can approve and act on.
In a simplified form, building a data governance use case comes down to three questions:
- Why: why do this data governance initiative?
- What: which actions must be carried out?
- For whom: who is the target?
Why do this initiative?
It is an illusion to run a data governance initiative without linking it to business needs. You need to:
- identify the areas where information can directly support the business;
- identify where information is used to move the business forward.
Questions that help:
- Which data is most used in high-value activities?
- Which systems and processes are used to acquire this data?
- Have problems been identified on this data?
- What are the risks of not addressing those problems?
What do you want to do?
It is easy to draw up a list of data governance best practices, such as:
- set up a data governance organization and framework;
- identify owners and stewards;
- develop good data management practices.
But a list of best practices does not make a successful data governance program. As well as identifying which actions must be done, you need to specify how those actions will answer the business needs you identified.
Who is it for?
Your use case must target a population. Data governance is a cross-discipline subject, so a single use case won't solve every problem. Building personas is a good way to:
- distinguish the different players you want to target;
- identify their difficulties and challenges;
- bring out answers to those challenges and difficulties.
How to write the one-page case
To write the case, answer these points in a page you can share:
- Business need: the high-value activity and the data it depends on.
- Problem and risk: what goes wrong today and what happens if nothing changes.
- Actions: what you will do, and how each action answers the need.
- Target personas: who benefits, and what their main difficulty is.
- Starting point: your maturity level, so the actions are realistic.