Understanding Data Governance Points of Engagement

Value is only added if there is engagement with the data governance-related content that supports your organization’s goal. This blog post will discuss the points of engagement (or entry) with data governance content that a data user at an organization might have. We will cover some examples of points of engagement concerning data, the types of engagement, what happens after engagement, and where engagement should be located.

Examples of Points of Engagement
These data-related points of engagement or entry include such items as:

• Searching for a definition, report, data-related policy, information on an integration, or data quality rule
• Request for a new report or change to an existing report
• Request for a new ETL process or change to an existing ETL process
• Request for a report to be curated or explained (question)
• Request for access to a report or data system
• Request to run or execute a report or process
• Request to add a reference data item (valid value list) or change an existing reference data item
• Request for a new definition or change an existing definition
• Request for a new data quality rule or change an existing data quality rule
• Request for a new data-related policy or change an existing data-related policy
• Request to share data with an outside organization
• Reporting of a data quality issue
• A developer working on a report needs further definition of a specific column on the report requested

Different Types of Points of Engagement
The data governance oversight committee needs to understand that there are different types of data governance points of engagement (searching, requesting, reporting). Usually someone will use a point of engagement to search and find something they need (report, definition, quality rule, etc.). If they cannot find what they are looking for then they will use another point of engagement to make a request for what they want (such as a new report). If initially they find what they are looking for, they are going to decide on if it is documented or curated to the level they need. If not, they will use another point of engagement to make a request to improve the information they need (such as need to improve that business glossary definition). Also, if someone sees a data quality issues, a point of engagement is necessary to report the issue.  You want a culture of using data governance content (searching), requesting information, reporting issues and self-service.

What Happens After Points of Engagement
Requesters have an expectation of a timely and knowledgeable response to their request. Therefore, these points of engagement should immediately initiate a workflow that gets to the right person (data steward) who can resolve that issue or create the necessary content.  A solution like the Data Cookbook is helpful to manage the workflow. Or you can use your ticketing system. Or you can just have what we call a Post-it Note workflow, which is here is the contact information for the person who usually handles requests like these.  This might be the functional domain expert or the technical expert, or policy relevant expert. If no data steward is assigned, then it should be routed to the data governance oversight group.

Take the customer service approach to data governance and close the loop with that person who made the request. Here are some possible feedbacks to the requester:

• Here’s the answer to your question. Did that answer your question?
• Your requested report has been completed. Please review and let us know if this is what you wanted.
• You were right. There was a problem there and we fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out to us.
• We investigated the issue you reported, and we think there is a misunderstanding. Let me explain how this report works and why it is giving you the numbers differently than you think.
• We investigated your reference data change request. We are not going to make the change now as it will impact a great many reports. We have requested report changes and once they have been completed, we will make your reference data change. You will be notified when this occurs.
• The business glossary definition you requested has been done. Here’s the link to it. If you think you need an improved definition or additional definitions, please let us know.
• Here’s the access to the data system you requested.

By looping back to that requester person, you will help build the requester’s trust in the process, the data, and the data governance content. And finally, when answering a question or resolving an issue, make sure that the answer or resolution gets put into the data governance knowledge base for the next time that question is asked, or issue is reported.

Where Points of Engagement Should be Located
Some data users can access their points of engagement in their data governance solution, like the Data Cookbook, to search or lookup information or make a request or report an issue. But if you are a casual data user or consumer of data within your organization, you are not going to remember that there is this data governance solution available. Our recommendation is put searchable links on a website page or on those actual reports. You want to put points of engagement where the data users are usually working. Or maybe starting in the ticketing system, if that is where they go, so those requests and search can happen. And you can use APIs and tools to let people search from the tools that they are using currently for reporting. Such as, I am looking at the report, have a question about it, I can click on a button or link and the information I want pops up right there on the report.

We hope that this blog post gets you thinking about the points of engagement, the searching, and then the requesting that will feed just-in-time data governance. Think about the feedback loop from these engagements. You want to think about how people will interact with the points of engagement and how data governance-related content is created from this. You want to make sure that data users know how to interact with the data governance content and these various points of engagement (such as searching and requesting). If you want additional information on data governance, please check out our data governance and data intelligence resources page (blog posts, recorded webinars, and videos).

IData has a solution, the Data Cookbook, that can aid the employees and the organization in its data governance, data intelligence, data stewardship and data quality initiatives. IData also has experts that can assist with data governance, reporting, integration, and other technology services on an as needed basis. Feel free to contact us and let us know how we can assist.

Photo Credit: StockSnap_J5LXKNDREC_pointsofengagement_handshake_Bp #B1203