We are a firm believer of just-in-time data intelligence. In this blog post we will cover less expensive, smarter ways to do data intelligence (data governance) over the more typical (and more costly) ways.
Here are side by side comparisons:
Typical Costly Way |
Less Expensive, Smarter Way |
Try to solve everything at once – knowledge, security, quality, lineage, etc. |
Focus on current reporting demands and data requests |
Create new positions and hire new people |
Identify existing staff as data stewards in each area |
Get everyone’s input and approval before moving forward |
Grant data stewards the authority to make unilateral decisions in their own domain |
Create multi-tiered hierarchical committee structure |
Allow data stewards to establish standards and escalate issues regarding the management of data |
Not having a roadmap for data intelligence initiative or taking a long time to create the roadmap |
Having a simple roadmap for data intelligence initiative |
Create definitions as a committee |
Build up descriptive metadata as reports are built and have the data stewards create definitions |
All data steward tasks are done by technical people |
Promote the attitude that data belongs to everyone, work on the functional definitions first and allow non-technical data stewards |
Focus data intelligence efforts on the IT and technical teams |
Enable and support the data stewards of all teams as well as focus on training, buy-in and accessibility of all data users |
Focus training and implementation time on tools training and technical issues |
Focus training on people, process and data, not tools |
Build a data warehouse to enforce that everyone shares a single version of the truth and promote controlling attitude |
Create a shared knowledgebase for data definitions (functional and technical) and promote a data guidance attitude |
Develop a big, targeted data intelligence initiative and force it on all departments without justification and buy-in |
Develop small and practical data intelligence processes that can be done every day or as we say just-in-time and explain reasons for data intelligence |
Have philosophy that data intelligence is about control, is rigid and is only about the data |
Have philosophy that data intelligence is about guidance, being flexible, helping people and making decisions |
Only allow access to data deliverables to a few individuals |
Allow access to data deliverables to as many folks as need it |
There is no central knowledgebase |
There is a central knowledgebase |
Purchase different packages to handle various data intelligence items (data quality, data requests, business glossary, data steward workflows, etc.) |
Purchase best of breed data intelligence solution like the Data Cookbook that handles all the necessary data intelligence items |
Use general purpose packages (SharePoint, spreadsheets, etc.) to handle data intelligence that requires a great deal of development and setup time as well as being costly over the long run |
Select best of breed data intelligence solution like the Data Cookbook that provides framework for data intelligence and can scale |
Create your own integrations to grab information about data from various sources that requires a great deal of development time and is very costly over the long run |
Use a data intelligence solution like the Data Cookbook that has integration capability with other data systems saving time and cost |
Work with vendor that does not understand data intelligence which means additional ramp up time and cost |
Work with vendor that understands data intelligence who can make an immediate impact |
Data governance and data intelligence is not easy but does not have to be harder than it must be. And harder usually means more costly. Take your time with data intelligence. You can not do it all at once. Focus on the items in the right-side column which we feel is the most effective, smarter, and less costly way to do data intelligence.
All getting started resources (including videos) can be found on our Getting Started Resources blog post. And check out all our other data governance / data intelligence resources by clicking here.
IData has a solution, the Data Cookbook, that can aid the employees and the organization in its data governance, data intelligence, and reporting initiatives. IData also has experts that can assist with data governance, data intelligence, reporting, integration and other technology services on an as needed basis. Feel free to contact us and let us know how we can assist.
(image credit StockSnap_SDM03P88BO_DG_Inexpensive_Way_BP #1211)