CDOT Performance Data Business Plan - Cambridge Systematics

CDOT Performance Data Business Plan
Washington State Department of Transportation – Data
Stewardship Council
WSDOT has a data council and a data stewardship council to help support data
governance at WSDOT. WSDOT also further defines two categories of data
stewardship: business stewardship and technical stewardship. The business
stewards are executive, managerial, and operational stewards, while the
technical stewards include the more traditional roles of system architects and
database administrators. For more information, see reference 1.
Data Management Principles from Michigan, Virginia, and Alaska
DOTs
Following is a summary of key data management principles identified by the
subject states during their data governance/management initiatives.
Create data once, store once, and use many times.
Define data from an enterprise perspective; define data so that it is sharable
across the department.
Make data available, allowing access to those who need it and create a
“published” data dictionary available through a web site or other means.
Establish data standards to reduce time and costs of maintenance of
redundant data sources.
Establish a data governance structure for the organization and data
stewardship roles to serve as liaisons with user groups, executives, IT and
COIs on data needs and emerging issues for such programs including safety,
mobility, preservation, etc.
Data is best managed by people who use it; business people must define the
data and services they need at all levels of the organization.
Establish a formal process for communicating business needs and manage
changes to existing data systems to ensure data programs continue to
support business needs.
4.2 STATE OF DATA GOVERNANCE AT CDOT
This project included an assessment of the needs and gaps related to data
governance to support performance reporting. The assessment was conducted
through interviews and meetings with relevant stakeholders throughout CDOT.
The stakeholder process is described in more detail in Section 2.
In addition to the stakeholder outreach, two informal yet revealing surveys
resulted in observations and led to the recommendations included in Section 4.3.
The first informal survey was conducted with the Division of Transportation
Development. The group participated in an evaluation of the data management
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