Hi, I have been asked to look at Governance team sizes to evaluate whether we are 'right size' for our organisation sizing.
Without providing details of your organisation name, could you add details to the attached spreadsheet.
I'm trying to get a feel for how big most teams are and what the optimum mix of resources would be.
thanks in advance for your help on this!
That's kind of a loaded question because I don't think you're ever really comparing apples to apples. One company governing metadata probably has a smaller organization than one governing metadata and data quality, and smaller still than one governing all data management capabilities. The number of business functions varies by industry and even within industry, so that's another variable. Another thing to consider is the breadth, such as a single country or multiple. You also have to consider how you count - full time members or also part time. Overall, I feel you should have very few full time members to keep the organization running. For the most part, you need to embed data governance into your everyday activities, so it becomes a lifestyle. Everyone should always be thinking about data governance, as opposed to causing data problems and then tossing the problem to a team of data governance people to fix. Head off the problems by doing things right the first time in your everyday job.
I'll echo Merrill's comment - "Everyone should always be thinking about data governance, as opposed to causing data problems and then tossing the problem to a team of data governance people to fix."
Also, If everyone helps out there isn't a "data governance department" that looks like it could be laid off if things get tight.
Having someone really experienced with data issues and who can build the right relationships with the business take the lead would be a good idea though.
-Jeff
Thanks @Jeff Albro and @Merrill Albert for responding. I agree with your comments and appreciate what you've said.
What I wanted to understand was based on the size of the company, what size teams are there who are focussed on DG, DM and DQ and what the make-up of those teams are. I've been researching in our country (NZ) and sharing the results with our DG Community of Practice.
We are all interested in understanding where companies are focussed and if we were wanting to scale up, what would a team look like at low maturity ranging to high maturity.
So many questions I know, but it would be good to know :
- if you have a dedicated DG team, how many people are in that team & what roles
- if dedicated, who do you collaborate with
- if spread across the company - no dedicated headcount, how do you ensure consistency
I have attended a number of conferences, webinars, online events where 'data governance' is everyone's responsibility and I would be really keen to hear from those who have managed to make this a reality.
thanks!
Kind regrds
Carol
Hi @Merrill Albert,
I love the idea of embedding governance into daily lifestyle. Have you got any practical tips on how you have made it a reality.
We have a similar matra for culture - we say 'it's how we do things here' and i want our governance efforts to be the same - people do it without even thinking about it
Carol
The typical organization I build has 1 full time member leading DG. For companies spanning countries, I often have 1 full time member per country. The exception is when I come in after the company has appointed or hired a DG team and then I have to try to make it work. For example, suppose you have never focused much on DQ and now want to start working on it. You probably don't have DQ rules defined or DQ reports in place. Think of that as a project. You could devote people full time to that project in defining rules, developing, testing, and implementing. After that, the project is over and you're sustaining. If you did it right, you're catching DQ problems early before they become a big issue for the company. You'll still have some DQ problems to address, but it isn't a full time job to wait for data to error out, research DQ issues, and produce DQ reports. Do you bother calling anyone a DQ Steward? I don't, but some do. If you do, realize that this is not a full time job title, but a role someone plays when they have other roles to play as well. Once sustaining, those DQ issues will come to the DG team to address, which will be made up of business people representing all functions in the company. That DG team is made up of people who have other roles to do as well.
It really depends on what you mean by Data Governance. If there's a project with data quality issues that need to be fixed, are you counting that as DG or as project work? If there is data modeling work for a subject area, is that DG or project work?
I don't set up DG with fulltime positions although the Data Governance Owner/Office can spend 30%-40% of his/her time on it, especially early on. Ideally, there are data stewards for each major subject area of the business that are involved more or less depending on if their subject area is being worked on. Project owners can include data stewards (with or without the label) in their project planning, and utilize the DG forum to size them in correctly, or if they don't, can get the input as a DG service if data stewards are primed (job responsibilities, budget approved) to jump into projects.
