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Foreword

It takes a special kind of person to really LIKE data governance. After all, this discipline exists at the
epicenter of data-related conflict. Day after day, we see how seemingly small actions and decisions
create data-related problems that ripple out through an organization, creating bigger problems in
reports and other information products, which create even bigger problems in the form of bad deci-
sions, inefficiencies, ineffective practices, noncompliance with laws and regulations, and even security
breaches. We stand our ground, watching these problems as they are created, as they grow, and as they
impact our organizations’ abilities to meet their missions. We engage the people around us, trying to
educate them about how to avoid creating those problems, how to find them, and how to fix them. We
work with C-suite executives, individual data workers, and everyone in between, preaching the same
message over and over: “You don’t have to live with the consequences of bad data. Let us show you
a different way.”
But, frankly, most people don’t want to hear it.
Most don’t love data for its own sake, just for what it does for them. Most people hear the word
“governance” and have a negativedeven visceraldreaction. Their rational mind might be promoting
the idea that “Big G” governance mechanisms (policies, mandates, standards, control objectives, and
other types of rules) are necessary. They might rationally agree that “little g” governance mechanisms
(controls) are essential. Still, their nonrational, emotional, primal brains will be reacting predictably to
any constraints, calling for the listener to fight, flee, or play opossum.
So imagine how delighted I was to meet John Ladley, someone who addresses the human aspects of
governance adoption from an anthropologist’s perspective, its strategic aspects from an executive’s
perspective, and its operational aspects from a practitioner’s perspective.
I think I heard John laugh before I ever heard him speak. It was at a conference, and someone had
just said, “No, they don’t want the responsibility [of data governance], but they don’t want anyone else
to have it either!” John’s laugh was contagious, and his face lit up at this example of human nature. He
followed up with some words of wisdom regarding organizational change management, and we got
into an extended discussion about details concerning some information management strategy that I
don’t remember now. Later, I discovered that his thought leadership came from a vendor-neutral
perspective and a strong sense of intellectual integrity. John has been a part of my personal “Kitchen
Cabinet”das well as a personal frienddever since.
The funny thing about data governance is that it is both old and new. When I was working in
publishing in the 1980s, we didn’t have automated workflows. We had hundreds of chunks of infor-
mation that had to go through multiple iterations and alterations before finally being compiled into
a magazine with a specific number of pages. If our content chunks weren’t well governed, we couldn’t
deliver our product. Our mailing lists and other structured data had to be well governed, or we couldn’t
operate. Oh yesdask anyone who was working in publishing (or working with mainframes) 30 years
ago, and they’ll tell you: Data governance was just a part of doing your job back then.
It was the rapid explosion of IT that changed things. In the rush to move to client-server, web-
based, and other game-changing technologies, many organizations lost both “Big G” and “little g”
capabilities. The focus of IT became the “T” (technology). In rapidly evolving organizations, it seemed
like no one group was responsible for the “I” (information). Things got messy, and then they got
messier. Somehow, the problem got labeled as poor collaboration between “Business” and “IT.” It took
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