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Governing Framework Design 51

5. Present EIM DG functional model to business leadershipdIt is very important to educate and
present the new responsibilities and accountabilities to management. In most cases, there will be
some shift in how management performance is rated. Do not be surprised if there is some back
and forth at this point as reality settles in to middle management (i.e., someone is going to be
held accountable for data).

GOVERNING FRAMEWORK DESIGN

Once the functions are determined, the next step is to place the functional design for DG into an
organization framework. This step is kept separate from the functional design for three reasons:

1. The team stays focused on required processes and workflow without worrying about people and
personalities.
2. The actual organization that executes DG will be very different from one organization to another,
even within the same industry.
3. In our experience, the organization framework originally proposed rarely resembles the DG
organization two years later.
Note also that the term “organization framework” is used instead of “organization chart.” We used to
call this phase organization design, but that is a misnomer. Given that the goal is to eventually blend in
with ordinary day-to-day behavior, you will rarely develop a large separate DG organization. There
will always be a small virtual function of DG visible, but only rarely do we see the need for a stand-
alone, permanently funded DG “department.”

HELPFUL HINT
If you have not done so by this point, drop the idea of a distinct DG now. At the root of successful DG is doing what
you are currently doing with information, but better. Think about changing other organization behaviors. The audit
committee does not take the correct actions to ensure accurate accounting. They make someone else do it.
Likewise, you do not want a separate DG organization doing the information asset management tasks.

This phase also entails identifying the stewardship/ownership/custodian population. Please note
that our methodology for rolling out DG delays this step until the functional design is completed. Other
processes may indicate identifying stewards, etc., earlier. We don’t like that because it places people in
a position of feeling they need to do something, but that something is usually ill-defined until this
point. It also avoids spewing the whole stewardship vocabulary around before you have actually
defined what that means for your organization. If you wait until now, you can designate roles and
responsibilities and then assign the appropriate label to a specific catalog of DG duties.

Considerations

There are many “standard” data governance organizations available in various articles and books to use
as a template. Most of the time a pyramid or other hierarchical presentation represents the DG
framework. It is fine to use straw-person frameworks with these, but they should never be proposed
without some thought or consideration of the organization’s culture and politics.