Enforcement and Accountability

Recently I responded to a discussion question on a LinkedIn group forum. The question dealt with how to enforce standards in a data management and stewardship scenario. The other responses mentioned the use of various committees and steering groups as well as management partners for enforcement of standards. One response suggested that a lot of messy people problems could be avoided if automated tools were used to find areas of non-compliance.

I can't help but think that we, as a society, must be nearing the pinnacle (or the pit) of buck passing. When I as an individual choose to ignore an incident in which an action by someone else either ignores the general good or threatens the welfare of all, I am turning my back on accountability and passing the buck to "someone" else.

There have been many instances in which a malefactor, caught in the act, has told me, "What's it to you? What do you care?" If I point out that the action was, for example, in violation of published standards, I might hear, "Nobody follows that. I didn't know it existed until you showed it to me."

The point is that it takes a lot of will in the face of widespread apathy to be accountable for not only following standards, but insisting that others follow them. A study, which I am unable to cite, showed that the rate of deterioration in a neighborhood increases when individual incidents are ignored. For example, a window broken by vandals goes unrepaired or "tagging" of a wall is not erased. Ignoring an incident encourages similar incidents and then worse ones.

I realize I am comparing failure to follow standards with vandalism and I do this with intent. If we assume the existence of a set of standards, they must have a purpose. Normally, the purpose is related to quality. Every manager wants their organization to run like a "well-oiled machine." When an organization does runs this way, we say it is a quality organization. Ignoring a standard is like dropping a grain of sand into the machine. Everything may proceed with one grain, but as one grain encourages two and then three, ..., eventually the machine will break down.

Bottom line: if you're looking for someone else to enforce standards, you're looking in the wrong place. It's up to me and it's up to you. If it's a bad standard, then it's up to me and you to get it fixed. Without personal, individual accountability, you will never get adherence. Enforcement is an empty concept even outside the workplace. People will not endure coercion for long.

Measuring Governance

I apologize. I said I would address this yesterday. We do have to get back to the guerrilla movement on the frontiers of the empire, but let's take a little time to look at measurement of governance.

First, let's agree that data governance is like any other governance except that it focuses on data. A governance program directed at process or at competency or whatever, would have the same characteristics? OK, I'll attempt a justification for that statement.

What do we ask of a data governance process? What are the objectives? By the way, I use the term process here in the sense of a set of activities that are ongoing and have a consistent purpose. The purpose of the data governance process is to:

Optimize the value of the data resource by insuring that the capture, storage, retrieval, destruction and use of the resource is done in accordance with established policy, procedure and standards.

Do you buy it? If not, I'd be pleased to discuss alternative purposes, but the remainder of this discussion is based on this purpose.

Based on the purpose of data governance then, several perspectives on measurement suggest themselves. The most obvious one is the QA (quality assurance) perspective. How are we doing at following established standards? It is tempting to count the number of standards, policies and procedures because counting is easy to do and there is a tendency among the governors to equate many laws with good government. Strangely enough, among the governed the emphasis is on the quality of the laws rather than their quantity. A small number of effective and easily understood standards may deliver more benefit than a larger number of over-specialized or esoteric ones.

The most effective measurement will be part of the standard or process itself, but some organizations may find it useful in getting governance going, to do retrospective analysis to see how well/consistently processes are being applied. Health care makes extensive use of the "chart review" to gather this kind of data retrospectively. Measurement intrinsic to the process or standard has the potential to be much more nuanced and useful than that done retrospectively simply because all of the context is available.

Clearly, though, the nature of the metric(s) is very much determined by the process or standard itself. For this reason, it makes no sense to discuss metrics or KPIs (key process indicators), a special kind of metric, without first establishing the process context.

Other perspectives might differntiate among standard, process, and policy or might measure in conjunction with the data life cycle, specific subject areas or specific usages.

One last point, should you be tempted to think in terms of measuring accountability.

Accountability in the absence of a standard is really approval.

No governance mechanism can exist for long based on approval. Each change in "leadership" will create massive turmoil as everyone seeks to reorient to a new approval model.