Data Governance Takes a Village (So Why is Everyone Hiding?)

Data Governance Takes a Village
(So Why is Everyone Hiding)?
Mary L. Williams, Curt McAdams, Susannah Barnes

2 | © 2022 Alation, Inc. – All Rights Reserved.
Data Intelligence + Human Brilliance™
Mary Williams is a thought leader in Data Governance
and Data Management, with decades of experience in
health sciences, manufacturing, and insurance.
Mary L. Williams - Contestant
Susannah is a data governance professional and the Data
Intelligence Program Lead at Alation. Previously she
worked with Mary in data governance at American Family
Insurance.
Susannah Barnes - Contestant
Robert S. Seiner is the President and Principal of KIK
Consulting (KIKconsulting.com) and the Publisher of The
Data Administration Newsletter (TDAN.com). He specializes
in “Non-Invasive Data Governance,” Data Stewardship, and
Metadata Management solutions.
Robert S. Seiner – Host
As the Senior Manager of Operational Data Governance
at Exact Sciences, Curt has many years of data
experience, from data modeling to building Data
Governance teams.
Curt McAdams - Contestant
I am participating today in my own capacity and not as a representative of
Exact Sciences. Any statements or opinions I share are my own and are not
necessarily representative of Exact Sciences or its affiliates.
I am participating today in my own capacity and not as a representative
of Exact Sciences. Any statements or opinions I share are my own and are
not necessarily representative of Exact Sciences or its affiliates.
Welcome to Our Data Governance Game Show!

Data
Governance &
Data Catalog
Prove your
value
Maturity &
Success
Cultural
Change
Data Points Pyramid
Here are our categories for
the 10,000 Data Point
Pyramid.

Defining
the need for
governance
& a data
catalog
Proving your
value,
building your
case
Maturing the
program &
making it
successful
Culture:
Corporate &
Data Driven
Data Points Pyramid

What data is available?
Data
Who do I contact?
Contact
Are we speaking a
common language when
it comes to business
terms?
Language
Can I trust the data?
Trust
Simple Questions to Get You Started
With data governance

Data
Governance &
Data Catalog
Prove your
value
Maturity &
Success
Cultural
Change
Data Points Pyramid

Business Case
Impact
• Data Governance and Data Catalog is about influence. Take time to find your
champion and recognize that they will change over time as your program evolves
and matures.
- It’s important to recognize champions at different levels within
the company. Higher levels of management can help with strategic adoption,
while individual contributor champions ensure that day-
to-day processes are successfully incorporated in existing work.
• Tell stories about our DG and DC adventures. Make them memorable
so others can repeat them and build awareness.
- Be sure to talk to your audience in their language, not in data language
• If possible, gather time spent data wrangling by data analysts, data scientists and
associated costs, Demonstrate with a data catalog the cost savings and employee
productivity gains to management and your champion.
- Real, impactful metrics can communicate why data governance helps
- Metrics should change as maturity increases
Proving Your Value & Building Your Case
KEY TAKE-AWAYS

Data
Governance &
Data Catalog
Prove your
value
Maturity &
Success
Cultural
Change
Data Points Pyramid

• Locate webinars, online courses, books, and conferences to build your team’s knowledge and
expertise about data and data governance / data catalog.
• Data Governance is a program, not a project, and talking with others going through
implementation of their programs can be a great resource.
• Hold knowledge-sharing sessions, be a member of the Alation Online Community to further
knowledge about a particular technology such as a data catalog.
• Understand your maturity steps and make sure they’re all addressed as maturity increases
• Develop an in-house training curriculum and hire experts to fill in the gaps as needed.
Senior members of a team share knowledge with junior members. Leverage stretch goals to
develop team members.
• Celebrate successes along the way. Don’t wait for just big items, but recognize that this is a
lot of little successes along the way.
Maturing Your Program & Making It Successful
KEY TAKE-AWAYS

Data
Governance &
Data Catalog
Prove your
value
Maturity &
Success
Cultural
Change
Data Points Pyramid

KEY TAKE-AWAYS
• Be creative and find new ways to connect with your data consumers and
data stewards.
• Communicate. Adoption and driving change take a lot of energy and
communication to build awareness. Small wins can greatly impact on your
data governance / data catalog program.
• Find a data pain point that the data governance program or data catalog
can help ease. Bring those stakeholders together to resolve the pain point.
• Continually evolve your message and content to keep people’s interest. If
one message doesn’t work, don’t get discouraged
try another.
Culture: Corporate and Data Driven

Simple Analogy of a Data Catalog
A public library is a repository for book that anyone
with a card can access and share knowledge.
A book has a title.
Introduction. An overview of what the book is
about.
Index – State which page a key term was used for
reference.
Author. Subject matter expert.
A data catalog is repository where employees can
share data knowledge with access.
Article title that is similar to a Wikipedia where
knowledge is shared about a topic.
Introduction. An overview what the data article is
about.
Index – States where a term is used such as data
source, data attribute or dashboard.
Author. Subject matter expert on the data topic.
Who to call if you have questions. Data Steward
Library / Book Data Catalog
Reviews. Rating the satisfaction and value of the
book.
Reviews. Subject matter experts rating on the quality
of the information as well as end user comments.
Glossary. Contains a list of terms used within the
book.
Glossary. Enter the data definitions, business rules,
and calculations that are relevant to the data topic.

Alation Facts & Figures
Enterprise Customers
400
Funding Raised
$217M
Employees
650+
More than 25% of
Fortune 100 companies are
Alation customers
Growing Workforce & Top-Ranked Culture
● Headquartered in Redwood City, CA
● 5 offices around the world
● 3x Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces
Industry Recognition
Named a Leader by top industry analyst firms
Category Creator
Founded in 2012
Foundational Technology
Leading Data Intelligence Platform
Alation by the Numbers

Alation’s Data Governance Customers

Active Data Governance in Alation
• Stewardship dashboard helps prioritize
curation, making stewardship fast and easy
while encouraging organization-wide
participation
• Agile approvals automate the approval
process, powering workflows that are
quick, easy, and extensible
• Policy enforcement informs users of asset
status, ensuring greater adherence to
policies and helping avoid use of
deprecated data
Success with data governance begins with an active, people-first approach.

Data Governance App
• Governance Home Page. Quick access to all
of Alation’s data governance features.
• Policy Center. Centrally manage data and organizational
policies. Apply and enforce data policies at the time of use,
helping meet security
& compliance objectives.
• Change Management Workflow. Govern change to ensure
catalog metadata is reviewed & approved by experts and is
trustworthy.
• Stewardship Workbench. Streamline and simplify
stewardship activities by updating and curating catalog
metadata in bulk via UI.
• Governance Dashboards. Demonstrate the value/progress
of your governance program
with a birds eye view of curation progress,
policy compliance, and open governance tasks.
Deliver trusted data & mitigate risk

Collaboration in Alation
• Human-centered design with consumer-
grade experience drives organic adoption

• Wiki articles crowdsource information so
everyone benefits from expert knowledge

• Wiki articles crowdsource information so
everyone benefits from expert knowledge
• Conversations store data-related discussions
centrally, making sure knowledge isn’t lost in
email and collaboration systems
The more people use it the better it gets, and the better it gets the more people use it.

Download IDC MarketScape
Google Search: Why Alation
Q & A
Try Alation
alation.com/snowflake-hands-on-lab

Data Governance Takes a Village (So Why is Everyone Hiding?)

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