Being the first Head of Data Governance
#6 Or how to make a good start
Hello 😀
I see a lot of companies hiring or appointing Heads of Data Governance. Or just giving this scope to the existing Chief Data Officer.
In any case, it’s a new role to embrace!
As they say, you can still fake it until you make it…
But let’s see how to make it 👇
Agenda
Recruiting
Becoming
Thriving
Recruiting
It is all about timing.
A budget has been defined for the hiring of this role, because key pains have been felt :
Existing data silos impacting negatively the business through poor decisions not relying on good data, security risks and higher maintenance costs of data
Long time-to-market for projects due to inefficient data integration and manual processes delaying access to data
Over reliance of Business on Tech, creating bottlenecks and slowing down the business's ability to quickly access and use data
The perfect moment is when you collect all these green lights :
🟢 Sponsors are onboarded : they understand the value and benefits of the program
🟢 Data strategy has been defined : the Chief Data Officer has defined the vision, priorities and use cases
🟢 IT, Data and Business are aligned : there is a shared understanding and collaboration on data initiatives with allocated resources
Great, let’s recruit !
You should aim for profiles with a proved leadership experience, meaning team management and recruitment. About 8-10 years of experience in either Business Management, Data Governance or Program management would be good.
IT or Business background?
In general, you’ll meet 2 types of profiles.
🥸 “The IT guy willing to move closer to the Business”
Be careful here, if the person has only had IT roles, it might be really hard for him/her to adapt and influence Business teams.
😎 “The Business guy willing to do Data”
Be careful here, if the person has never manipulated data, it might be really hard for him/her to understand technical aspects and pains due to lack of Data Governance.
The ultimate profile to look for is one with a growth mindset and strong communication skills.
Becoming
As Head of Data Governance, you should expect to spend a lot of time convincing various stakeholders - not Sponsors if timing of recruitment is good.
For sure there will be a strong need for change management, so get ready to educate a lot and incentivize participation to get more contribution.
You will also have to take risks to show the value. This means implementing pilot projects or quick wins that showcase tangible benefits. And sometimes, this means doing a bit of shadow IT to shortcut some processes that would be long. Or help to write a script to automate data manipulations.
Your starting kit
Your first 2 months will be key to understanding what already exists and laying the foundations for the program. What you must do in any case :
Frame COMEX expectations
Members should be interviewed individually to understand their upcoming business challenges and how governed data can help them.
Talk with all stakeholders
Meetings with all Heads of Business, IT, Chief Data Officer, Data Protection Officer is a must.
Spend time with business users
Interview them, be with them, eat with them. Hear what they talk about : is it hard to manage data providers? they can’t open the last Excel file on top sales?
Understand data architecture
Take the time to read or ask questions on systems and the legacy. Find someone who’s been there for 5+ years and get “off” insights.
Craft your vision
Build a super easy presentation explaining what the organization would look like if data was better governed. It means that you should explain the data consumer journey from a crappy present to a sexy future.
Do it with all stages of the data journey : from the collection, storage, transformation, modeling down to the exposition and visualisation.
What about trainings?
Time to be honest.
CDMP certifications are useless. No one has ever been refused a job in data governance because they didn't have CDMP certification.
To grow as Head of Data Governance, you should increase your knowledge on Data governance methodologies and benefits.
👉 How? By reading and collecting insights through available resources (blogs, podcasts, etc.). Or just by having lunch with peers from other companies.
Thriving
Your best buddies should be :
The Chief Data Officer - if it’s you then you’re alone 😅 : you should be super close, sharing a common strategy. That’s how you’ll get ROI metrics to show : Data Governance provided good data for AI use cases.
The Heads of Business departments : you should see them regularly, have lunch and chat about what they do. They should see you as a business enabler. They should rely on you to define data roles within their department to improve how they use data.
The definition of success
You should not be the one who shines in the end.
You should aim for having a Business head showcasing the output that you contributed to get.
For example, you could have the Head of Marketing saying that campaign input delay has been reduced by 20% for half of markets thanks to the naming convention and standards applied for campaign data collection.
See you soon,
Charlotte
I'm Charlotte Ledoux, freelance in Data & AI Governance.
You can follow me on Linkedin !