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Overview 135

Business Benefits and Ramifications

This activity prepares the organization for the initial “bump” or learning curve that gets DG started.
You will now know who is affected in terms of new job responsibilities. You also will get another
indication of how serious the organization is, simply because the individuals who will be the best in the
DG roles are most likely in high demand.
Some ramifications will appear that may be new to the DG team. For example, HR may give the
DG team a blank stare. Several times, we have taken the new responsibilities documentation to HR
areas only to discover it has been a long time since new roles have been presented from another
business area. While HR staff appreciates the need to manage people and have useful job descriptions,
they do not do it very often and they do not understand DG.
• Boundary problemsdThe DG team may be accused of overstepping its charter by recommending
organizational actions. This is something that can be avoided by early and frequent managing of
expectations.
• Political considerationsdInevitably, some areas of an organization will have more power and
influence than others. The DG team will need to figure out the political situation and either
work with the more powerful areas as allies or get executive assistance to counter any
pushback.
• IncentivesdCorporate incentives are often used to move organizations toward better DG. HR will
need to approve these, and they may even be useful in identifying programs that can provide
a stimulus to DG acceptance.
Approach Considerations
This activity will occur in parallel with the presentation and approval of the DG framework. In very
large and politically charged organizations, you will most likely identify personnel “as you go.” That
is, you will identify the DG personnel required for a particular portion of the information assets, such
as the MDM project or the data warehouse. This activity will be revisited often as DG expands or
personnel change.
Sample Output

Figure 11-10 shows a nice representation of various levels of authority and roles to go with names.
Tips for Success

Two useful hints stand out for this activity:
1. Don’t be afraid of some horse-trading. That is, if you want a certain individual to be
a steward, look for opportunities to provide backfill for them. If a politically powerful area
wants to dominate the councils, then request they become full-bore sponsors and take on
accountability.
2. Now is the time to consider some incentives. If accountability means holding a manager
to particular data quality targets, then work with HR to tie the DQ metrics into their compensation.
In Chapter 5, we mentioned that this is more than just names on boxes. Some of the obstacles you may
encounter and the useful responses to them are:
• Perceived political threats from some getting “power” over datadShow how everyone is subject to
DG, not just particular areas.