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organization does with the content and information it produces. Focus is on impressions and
feelings business personnel have on how well the company uses and manages data to its
advantage. Besides identifying a current state, this activity provides a baseline for measuring
progress toward future DG effectiveness from an objective, qualitative standpoint.
2. Change Capacity AssessmentdUnderstand the organization’s ability to adapt to new/changing
policies regarding the management of information assets. The focus is on determining how
much change the organization can embrace. The assessment will provide an overview of where
the DG program will run into resistance and will establish a framework that will influence the
design of the sustaining strategy for DG.
3. Collaborative Readiness AssessmentdThis assessment reviews the ability of the organization to
operate in a cross-functional manner under a formal program of collaborative processes. The
focus is not cultural (i.e., are there barriers to collaborative processes?), but actual ability and
understanding of collaborative processes. Most organizations do not grasp the additional
abilities and skills required for collaboration. The assessment will develop baseline knowledge
of collaborative skills and ability.

HELPFUL HINT
Collaboration is a word that is becoming as cliche ´ as “culture change” due to overuse. Much akin to “governance”
and “culture change,” it is a term that is easier to understand than to implement. Remember this, the reason you
are talking about all three of these terms is that your entire organization is realizing that the way things are being
done is not sustainable. That means retraining, learning, changing abilities, and adopting new philosophies.

VISION

The “Vision” phase is executed to demonstrate to stakeholders and leadership the definition and
meaning of DG to the organization. The goal is to achieve an understanding of what the data
governance program might look like and where the critical touch points for DG might appear. Those
new to DG but aware of other strategic program processes may initially say this step is superfluous if
the organization is totally on board. However, our practice has shown this is a dangerous position to
take. It turns out that until you show some sort of “day-in-the-life” presentation, many people do not
comprehend what DG means to their position or work environment. In the context of DG, this phase
may appear to be more of a conceptual prototype.

Considerations

Since we are creating a very high level, or notional, representation of what DG could look like, you
need to translate scope into a definition of DG that is suited to your organization. Then form that
definition into a clear simple representation of scope and impact. You may even want to take a run at
a notional road map with a comparison of current state to future state. At this stage, you need to do
whatever (emphasis on “whatever”) it takes to continue to draw more and more stakeholders into