Actionable Information Governance Part 2

Following up on my recent blog discussing the 26 capabilities that underpin Actionable Information Governance, I want to talk briefly about some organisational ideas that can help you deliver these capabilities more effectively.

Once again, what I present is based on my experience and observation of what works with my practitioner colleagues. These ideas are based on my belief that leading the use of analytics in the organisation needs to be the business itself and that this leadership must be under the support of at least 2 C level executives. Finally, there should be a Centre of Excellence and two communities of practice:

Business Organisation

The Data and Analytic communities are your data and reporting stewards. They are the people responsible in your organisation for data quality and delivering analytic insight to your decision makers. These roles may be part- or full-time, and they may form real or virtual communities. They do however, have to be practitioners.

The Data and Analytic communities of practice are each responsible for delivering the following capabilities:

• Access
• Monitor and Analyse
• Discover and Explore
• Quality
• Classify Data
• Metadata Management
• Data Profiling.

As you will see below, some of these capabilities are jointly managed and delivered. This is because modern analytics often involves a technology component that is complex and requires multiple skills, some of which are unlikely to be available within the communities of practice.

The third business group are the hard-core of your analytic specialists. Gartner and others refer to this as the business intelligence competency center, or BICC for short. The term is too 'nerdy' for the organisations I have worked with, but regardless of what you call it, the capabilities it must deliver are pretty well agreed on by analytic practitioners.

These specialists are there to empower the communities of practice, and coordinate and optimise the IT efforts made in support of these communities. This centre of excellence is responsible for delivering the following capabilities:

• IM Strategy
• BI Tool Evaluation and Selection
• Content Management
• Collaboration and Change
• Implementation and Training.

The final (and vital) role is for the senior executive group and this is to own and exercise governance of information.

IT may not lead analytics under this model but they do have vital roles that underpin the business effort. There are 3 main groups for this, under the direction of the CIO:

IT Organisation

The Enterprise Architects deliver the technology blueprint:

• Information Architecture
• Application Interfaces
• Data Warehouse Design.

The Application Developers build and enhance the major technology components of the analytic platform:

• IM Application Development
• Data Profiling
• Project Management.

The emphasis here is on the technology. The business communities of practice are responsible for agreeing and delivering standard analytic practices. These are the analytic methods employed to deliver insight.

For example, it is common for organisations to model customer acquisition and attrition behaviours. Modelling can be done through a variety of techniques and processes but if you want to be able to reliably compare models (i.e. compare different areas of the organisation), then you need to be consistent in how you define and treat the data.

Sharing standard analytic practices encourages trust in your insights and confidence in the subsequent decisions made.

Finally, the Infrastructure group keeps the data tuned to optimum performance and ensures that the platform is available when the business requires it:

• Database Administration
• Operations Management.

So there are the capabilities and responsibilities. Many are shared by different groups and it can be complex to manage. Here is one way to do it:

Putting It All Together

As I have mentioned previously, analytics is a complex function and in the ideal world we would all have large teams of people to deliver these capabilities. Reality is often more challenging and we never reach the ideal. Dealing with this was the subject of a previous post "How Many Analysts Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?"

In the coming days I will round off my thoughts on information governance by talking about the organisational processes needed to provide effective support.

Comments

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[Vitoria]

I am on Dan's Mac on the circle in Indy still watiing for him to get off drill Anywho How do you approach your friends about difficult things to talk about? Well, for me, it is a person to person basis everyone is so different you have to speak to everyone with a different level of intimacy, seriousness, and understanding of their background/personality/worldview/etc. Overall, I do understand what you are saying in a small capacity. Let me explain: My brother and my sister have been feuding and my mom has been upset, because my brother did not come to Thanksgiving due to my sister being there. This killed my mom (emotionally-speaking) simply for the fact that we have a fairly close family. They were both offended, and their offenses really needed to be reconciled because they were failing to accept that each of them were wrong on a different level. This situation was not something that in my opinion was serious enough to turn family away, but it was serious to them (neither wanted to apologize, ultimately). Last week, i talked to my sister, and trying to tactfully ask her/talk with her was very difficult. I discussed the situation totally differently than i would have with Dan, with my brother, or with my mother. The point that i am making is that each person that you talk to about your to-do list, your thoughts, your feelings, your deployment is going to be different. Red, just be yourself. That is the best person to be for you. Be real, as only you know how to be. If someone cries, remember that each person is different emotionally, we handle things differently, we process things differently. But no matter how it is sliced, everyone is going to miss you and think about you every day. That is one commonality.I will write more later, Dan is coming from drill to pick me up so i must shut this computer down haven't gotten to recheck spelling, etc so forgive my quick hands that have made several mistakes!! tiff

[Yagi]

As one of the founding mebrmes of the Stillwater Watchdogs, prior Kenel Master, I found it somewhat painful to sit through the Let's Talk Stillwater last thrusday night. A group of library supporters were passionate in their defense of the library budget. I have tried to keep an arms distance from this issue as I think city management is protecting their own and the library is just another area for them to cut. If anyone thinks the WatchDogs were to blame, they are mistaken. A very high percentage of the Watchdogs support the Library cause actively. What is so painful is that many of these people seem to be oblivious of the local government issues that should concern them as much as the library. They are just waking up to the fact that our city employee count is 40% above the national norm and worse than that, their paychecks are 40% to 100% higher than the private sector. Fiscal responsibility and prudence in government staff, starts at the local level and goes all the way to the top. I hope those who got their eyes opened that night get active and help straighten out this situation.

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