MDM_Whitepaper_EDG_Finance

ENTITY WHITE PAPER IS EFFECTIVE DATA GOVERNANCE A CHOICE OR A NECESSITY IN FINANCIAL SERVICES TODAY?
Assessment will lead to recommendations in order to achieve a desired future state, and
these recommendations will need to be prioritised as part of a Data Governance roadmap.
The programme should deliver value incrementally and ultimately lead to Data Governance
maturity across the entire organisation. Data Governance should become part of the DNA of
the organisation and not a separate function.
Failure to understand the gap between as is and to be and failure to measure processes and
progress will inevitably lead to programme failure. Most organisations have an idea that
they are not where they want to be, but not where that is or where they are. They never
understand how to get there.
It is important that all of the stakeholders across business units are involved in the
assessment; ideally from business functions that will be improved by Data Governance,
identified when defining the business problem.
A Maturity Assessment should not be a one-off event. It should be conducted at regular
intervals, to measure progress along the Data Governance Maturity Curve for the data
relevant to the particular business issue being solved.
The results of a Maturity Assessment should be documented and presented to senior
decision makers, outlining next steps and priorities key to the success of the Data
Governance programme. This helps to ensure continued buy-in and sponsorship.
BUILD A ROADMAP
Rolling out an effective Data Governance framework and discipline across a complex
organisation is not simple, cannot be done overnight, requires buy in from multiple
SOLUTION
stakeholders and involvement from teams across the entire business. For these reasons, it
is impossible to undertake a big bang approach to programme execution. Also, Executive
Sponsorship tends to be predicated on successful delivery on an incremental basis and
wanes rapidly if this is not forthcoming.
The business problems to be solved, together with the Maturity Assessment, allow the
identification of a reference architecture to support the strategic aims of the business. A series
of smaller, prioritised by business case, more tactical projects can then be defined within the
confines of an enterprise programme that deliver the strategy but in incremental units.
These early wins facilitate continued Executive Level sponsorship as success and measurable
Return-on-Investment give confidence that resources are being allocated appropriately.
The roadmap should highlight the types and timings of Data Governance projects that
deliver value on an incremental basis. Each project should stand to win its right to resources
based on the strength of its individual business case within the programme structure. Key
stakeholders should agree and understand which data domains will be governed (meta
data, reference data, master data (customer, account, product, etc)) and how implementing
policies and processes around them will impact and contribute value to the business.
Drawing up a heatmap presenting a two dimensional matrix of all of the ‘information pains‘
identified during the Maturity Assessment, with business value on one axis and investment
on the other, provides an objective mechanism to prioritise implementation. It is an effective
mechanism to derive and manage the programme roadmap over a period of time.
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The Maturity Assessment enables Executive Level management to visualise the data maturity
of key factors including data quality, data security, data auditability, data consistency, data
accessibility and data availability across the organisation. Together with the heatmap, it
enables the organisation to create the optimum roadmap for tackling projects incrementally
with a view to deriving maximum business benefit as soon as possible.