The Data Governance Color Palette
September 24, 2008
It is no secret that people are different. My wife loves process and order. She is disciplined and pays attention to detail. I, on the other hand, love chaos and new things. I like to create and invent.
Then there are those accountant/analyst folks who love details and facts. Finally, there are those who are people people – the ones who pay careful attention to others and their feelings. True, these are simply attributes that we all have in varying degrees. But, it is no secret that we have some in big doses while others are very small.
So, what happens when governance groups are out of balance? What if we have a data governance group that is made up of ten people like me…loving new things and big visions with little to no attention to detail? Or, there are ten folks like my wife – loving processes and steps to implement. Not a whole lot of new out of the box thinking – but truly skilled in the art of process.
Also, imagine ten folks sitting on the data governance group that are those people people – they think of relationships and peoples feelings. Are these people going to be ‘enforcers’ of the rules and standards? Finally, how about those factual lovers? Can they implement?
We need to have a well balanced governance team that has the right amount of visionary ability plus the people needed to validate those ideas against facts and figures plus those important people people who can tell you how to craft that message and how to reach people plus those implementers, those who can frame the plan in all its glory!
Well, if you have been around governance groups at all, you have seen cases where the team is not well-rounded. There are just too many of the same type of people in the group – or one ‘attribute’ exists in a dominate individual which infects the entire team.
Consider the following:
Where the yellow are the folks who are visionaries, always thinking up new things, but don’t have much skill at details, working with people or process.
Where the blue are the folks who are based in facts and figures.
Where the red are the folks who are those people people.
Where the green are the folks who are highly skilled in the art of process.
I was thinking about these different attributes and what happens when we have an imbalanced group. What are the warning signs, what can we expect when we are unbalanced. In the above diagram, I list the three roles of governance at the top and the different attributes in the color bands. Crossing them are the things that seem to happen when that group is out of balance.
For example, I have seen this many times…a team that is unbalanced and mostly blue (based in facts and figures) spends lots of time to produce the “10 Commandments”, then they post them on the world for all to see. These are the folks who develop principles and standards with complete definitions and taxonomies. These become artifacts or works of art to hang up and be proud. But nothing happens after this? Why, because they needed the greenies!
Or take the unbalanced team in the yellow zone… lots of big ideas come from this team. We often see a tremendous amount of momentum out of the gate because they sold senior leadership who moved mountains to take advantage of these ‘game changing’ ideas. But, very soon their progress stops, more than stops – we simply never hear from those folks again. Why, because those ideas were not tested by the blue folks!
Another example is an unbalanced green team… they spend tons of time to put together standard operating procedures which stream line operations. But this group misses the mark because they didn’t have that spark that a yellow brings!
Finally, when those red folks who are so needed in the group are in the majority – we have to be careful that we don’t approach the governance from the touchy feeling perspective, where we may be more interested who’s feet we may step on.
I have only touched on four cells – there are twelve to consider. Think it through. We need all these attributes and need to have them in a balanced manner. Look for those warning signs and think about who is in your group. Do you need to bring about change? Start by knowing where you are, looking at where you have been, so that you can make those adjustments to take you where you want to go!
Happy Balancing!
~Scott Felten
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