The Status of [Data] Governance

In the past 10 days I have addressed DAMA chapters in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin on the topic of governance. As part of the presentation, I attempted to learn the status of governance initiatives within the participating organizations. These organizations ranged from the small (< 1000 employees) to the very large.

There was no enthusiasm surrounding the state of any governance activity and only a few who were even willing to say that they had any governance in operation.

As a result of this admittedly informal survey, I am willing to state that recognizable [data] governance is virtually non-existent. But wait, you say, I have read press releases about enterprise data governance being rolled out at some really big-name corporations.

I have done some personal research at one such big-name company by interviewing in person or on the phone several individuals within the corporation who are directly involved at several different levels. This more formal survey revealed a considerable degree of anxiety among those directly responsible for some piece of the effort. At the same time there was a sense of interested detachment from those involved in the "governance" of Enterprise Data Governance. Meanwhile those who should have been heavily involved by virtue of their job responsibilities but weren't formally part of the structure had a pretty fatalistic attitude about the whole thing.

The overall impression I took away was in the nature of the Emperor's New Clothes. The comment I heard most frequently (from every one of those interviewed) was, "We're making progress." These people all have a history with this company that goes back to 1992 and earlier so I imagine that when they stop to consider the difference between then and now, progress of many kinds is apparent.

I'm all for making progress, but I have to wonder if we aren't too easily satisfied. If those who set out on the Oregon trail had been satisfied with progress at this rate, their great-grandchildren would have been overtaken in their Connestoga wagons by the construction of Interstate 80. It would seem that one of the worst things that can happen to an organization (company, corporation, institution) is to create a bubble within which to operate.

Many organizations today seem to have done this and those with the most identifiable corporate culture and the strongest brand have done the most to create their own distinct and separate reality in which "making progress" is not only good enough, it is the pinnacle of achievement.

In the USA, we have a model of governance that was the first of its kind and, because of the model's structure, is viewed as something that can be duplicated elsewhere. We are accustomed to thinking of this model as democracy but that is a mistake. John Adams (successor to George Washington) got it right when he analyzed it this way, "We are a government of laws and not of men."

The corporate equivalent of laws is standards. Governance based on men (and women) runs on approval while governance based on standards) laws runs on compliance. Clearly compliance based governance where compliance can be verified by audit is vastly preferable to approval based governance in which approvals are both slow and subject to reversal for any of a myriad of reasons.

No system of governance is perfect, but a living system in which standards are subject to periodic review and can be modified to accommodate external changes, must be preferred over the alternative. Where will the leaders come from who will do for corporate governance what Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin and others did for national governance?

Governance in Context

Every time I talk with a group of people I come away more convinced that the lack of governance is the underlying reason for the "failure" of so many technology initiatives.

I have addressed two DAMA chapters this week and those in attendance included a CIO, managers, data and business architects, data modelers, warehouse analysts... I would guess the average age of the groups to be about 40 and they came to their current job roles for the most part via a technology path. They shared stories of corporate in-fighting, closed-mindedness and self-centeredness that have produced some incredibly poor decisions (or non-decisions). The general mood seemed to be resignation if not acceptance. They asked repeatedly what could have been done differently.

Data governance is on many minds today because of some horror stories involving costly mistakes that were avoidable (see Confessions of a Data Governance Sponsor). Anyone can find success if they find the right expert partner and if you are really committed to governance, that's what you'll do. The devil is, as always, in the details.

First of all, how is commitment generated? How does the commitment become focused on [data] governance? Finally, how can we envision and create something that is independent of individual champions (not built on a cult of personality)?

Imagine that we live in a nation without governance--the strongest or the most charismatic become "warlords", accumulating bands of adherents who follow orders and share in the spoils. Now imagine that we are somehow able, through commitment to a vision, sacrifice and patience, to create a system of governance in one city. Present day Afghanistan springs to mind as a real-life example. What will happen to the governance in the city if it can't be extended into the rest of the country?

Now imagine an example of a country with good governance in which a single city has resisted or expelled governance. Hollywood has produced many examples of this story.

Which scenario has the best chance of producing uniformly good governance?

One of the companies represented at one my presentations is a very modern one in which all employees are "team members" and much effort has clearly been spent to create a uniform image. The team members are proud of the identity that they share. At the same time, this companies refers to its business units as "pyramids." What message does this convey? I can think of few metaphors that indicate monolithic autonomy better than pyramid (unless perhaps "silo"). If I work in a terrain of pyramids and want to institute governance, I really have only one choice--to create governance within a single pyramid. This is analogous to creating governance in a single city of a lawless land.

Only the person responsible for all the pyramids could turn a commitment to governance into a common system of governance in all the pyramids. Of course, if we had an organization that had a presence in all of the pyramids, we could delegate the task of creating governance to them. They might even have a chance to succeed if everyone understood that their efforts had the blessing of the supreme leader.

I believe that data governance is somewhat analogous to streets governance or sewers governance. It is absolutely necessary for the community but doomed to fail unless the vision and commitment become widespread. Neighborhood Watch can go a long way toward eliminating unpleasant surprises within a community and one successful neighborhood watch will stimulate surrounding communities to emulate this "best practice." There is a real limit, though, on what a neighborhood watch can accomplish and many, independent and uncoordinated such efforts will provide many gaps through which unpleasantness will find its way.

A company that is unable or unwilling to do process management does not have a sufficient level of governance to support a data governance initiative. If standard processes are anathema, forget about data governance. There must be a level of maturity to set the stage for successful governance or there must be a universal system that indoctrinates new community members with governance principles and assigns and explains their role(s). Military organizations understand this. Our school systems understand this. Every corporation has new employee orientation programs, most of which contain no reference to standard process and the employee's responsibility to adhere to standards.

"We are a government of laws and not of men." except when we step into the corporate bubble. At that point, it is understood that we are to work for the approval of the boss.

Standards Clarification

A bit of a postscript to the last post:

I can almost hear the snorts of disgust. Many in healthcare will be quick to dismiss the last post by telling themselves that "we have standards." I can't allow them to let themselves off so easily.

Of course healthcare employs standards. I was, for a brief time, part of a newly formed HIMSS task force on standards. Healthcare has a wealth of standards, none of which are truly standards in that all use words such as should and unless and if possible.

Healthcare has not seen fit to develop a framework for standards and no ontology by which to bring sense and meaning (and thereby value) to the hundreds of standards vying for attention. In truth, anyone in healthcare can say without fear of contradiction that "we have standards" and none of those assertions mean anything.

If n people or organizations are doing the same work using n (or even n-1) standards, it cannot be said that the work is being done in accordance with standards. This is said routinely by each of the workers but to those who view the work from an objectifying distance, it is quite clear that n standards is no better than no standard.

Measurement of process in healthcare has a long way to go before SPC principles can be applied.

How, by what process, can healthcare practitioners be brought to believe in the power of process standards through which measurement standards can be developed? Whose interests are satisfied by the status quo?

Standards Dread

Healthcare in general and from top to bottom seems to have an absolute dread of standards. Physicians (many if not most) will flop about like a fish on a hook whenever the word comes up. They fight no matter how the subject is introduced. Whether it be "guidelines", "pathways" or even "best practice", it doesn't matter. As an interested consumer, I find this disturbing on several accounts.

1. It demonstrates such a me-first, tunnel vision mentality that, if I were given a clear choice, I would run as fast as I could away from this and toward anyone who could demonstrate that they do, in fact, adhere to standards.
2. It has a huge--and negative--effect on everyone else in the healthcare organization. The physician role is so central in healthcare that, if there is no reliable standard (process) for the physician, then nursing, registration, coding, billing, systems developers..., no one can predict from one day to the next or from one patient to the next what they're going to be asked to do.
3. It holds the practice of medicine back to a level not much different than was seen in the 18th century. Oh, sure, we have better drugs now and diagnostic magic is performed many times a day using the lastest technology, but the outcome for me, the patient, is so dependent on the physician I see that "bedside manner" often seems to be the most critical factor in outcomes.

In my 60+ years of life on this planet, I have seen that humanity can be put into two groups--those who appreciate standards and those who do not. Further, it has always seemed that the second group is the cause of problems not ony for themselves, but for everyone. Let's take a kind of standard that we're all familiar with--traffic laws. Those who flout the traffic laws are a hazard to everyone else on or near the road. And note that consistency and predictability are key. Traffic laws work because they produce consistency and the ability to predict with some assurance what the other guy is going to do. Those two principles keep everything flowing smoothly and with minimal (and manageable) disturbance.

We do not realize fully, the value of the standards we employ in this country. John Adams is the one who noted that we are governed by laws not men. Bribery is a recognized way to get things done in many parts of the world. Imagine having to find the right person (how do you do that?), paying to get their attention, then finding out that they weren't the right pewrson after all and having to start again. We sometimes go through that with building and remodeling contractors and it makes the evening news. Healthcare isn't much different EXCEPT that we don't get as heated about it because someone else is paying.

I constantly wonder at the inability of the insurance companies to get provider organizations to create and use standards.

Today, we are being told that technology is the key to the healthcare crisis (which is a crisis of out-of-control costs). I am going on record here that technology will only drive costs up unless the healthcare "system", beginning with physicians, learns to cherish standards, utilize standards, trade on standards.

We, the patients, must demand a system in which we can rely on standards to produce outcome and efficacy data allowing comparison of physicians and organizations. It's a sad system in which the only statistics available for comparison are mortality numbers.

The Beginning (3)

Before we explore the data architect role in terms of our overall goal, I should say that I do not intend to go into depth for any of the roles. I mentioned the need for standard processes but didn't specify any of the necessary processes. For one thing, that level of detail is well beyond the scope of this (or any) blog. For another, the processes and standards must be compatible with the organizational culture. I wouldn't go so far as to say that any path will do, but I will say that, if you live in Minneapolis, there is more than one way to get to Miami. The thing to remember is that there are more constraints as you depart and again as you arrive. We ask, "What's the best way out of town if I'm headed south?" And then we ask, "What's the best route to city hall if I'm coming from the north?" But in between we can take the scenic route, the shortest route, the fastest route, the Civil War route or any other route that seems good at the time as long as we keep our eventual goal in mind.

From the standpoint of business intelligence and our four characteristics, we would want to pay special attention to what the programmers are doing or not doing with respect to definitions (semantics). The data architect will have spent considerable effort in researching and compiling information about the data. They will have learned about how various kinds of data relate to each other for different business functions and users and they will have defined quality rules for each kind of data.

The process standards, to be monitored by Quality Assurance and warrantied by Quality Control, will ensure that the programmers have those definitions and rules in a format that they can use and that they do, in fact, use them.

If your programmers work for someone else, the processes and standards will be about acquisition. They will ensure that the data definitions and relationship rules embodied in the application or system are compatible with those of your business. You are going to have to lean hard on your vendors and they will squirm and plead "proprietary." The best advice that I can offer is to walk away from this vendor. Another vendor will be happy you asked because it will allow them to really get close to you and they will be proud of their quality processes. The ones who drag their feet do so because they aren't able to produce the assurance you need. Proprietary is a euphemism for we don't know.

Become interested in these things. Ask questions. Expect answers that you can understand. Don't accept arm-waving and diversionary tactics. You will be well on the way to business intelligence from a high quality, reliable data resource.

Next time: the "business" role