Governance and Data Governance

It occurred to me today that one of the reasons for so much confusion in the data governance ranks today is that businesses have a hard time with governance in general.

The literature I've seen (and I'll admit I'm not ready for a thesis defense) is focused on the what I would call the mechanical aspects.

• What kind(s) of committee(s) and at what level
• Who should be members
• What are the roles of the committee(s)
• Who holds the "decision rights"
• What are the decision domains

When discussing committee membership, the choices are framed in terms of role and level within the business.

Nowhere is the question of competency introduced. To me, this is cause to wonder about the purpose of governance. If competency is not a requisite quality of governance, then why do it? It seems clear that, even in areas that most would gladly cede to executive management such as strategy formulation and prosecution, there is an aspect of competence that, if missing, will cause decisions to be ineffective and/or impossible to implement.

We are accustomed to seeing leadership, management and governance used interchangeably when, in fact they are three different activities with three separate purposes.

Leadership has the mission of (productive or positive) change.

Management has the mission of effectiveness and efficiency.

Governance has the mission of stability, consistency and predictability.

I submit that questions about whether a certain initiative should be funded or not is NOT a question for governance but for management. The governance question is whether doing this will upset the applecart. Can we continue to produce expected results if we do this? If we need to do this because of a leadership imperative, how can it be accomplished such that predictability is preserved?

Without intending any disrespect to executives, it is doubtful whether they could productively be involved in answering those questions.