Organization

The next pillar of an effective MDM strategy is organization. Organization builds on governance by getting the right stakeholders identified and enlisting them as part of your governance body.

To get started with organization, you need determine the appropriate stakeholders based on the business problems your MDM program is trying to solve. Once you identify those people, you need to decide how you will hold them accountable and ensure they understand and accept the responsibility.

Organization is not just about getting the right people to the table from a governance perspective, but also from an accountability, data stewardship and data ownership perspective.

Why is Organization Important?

It’s critical to identify stakeholders upfront and outline their responsibilities, because those data stewards and subject matter experts will play an important role in setting the direction of your MDM program.

Many organizations look to hire someone new to act as a data steward, and while you can certainly do that, that approach presents unique challenges because it means the data steward doesn’t really know the data. They can get to know it over time, but they will never be fully invested in it and will not see the connection of how it works for the business. As a result, you’re best off asking people who use the data day in and day out to serve as data stewards. When you make the actual users of data your data stewards, those people can apply their hands-on experience to managing and enriching the data.

Regardless of which route you go, having data stewards is essential. Without the organization that data stewards provide, you end up with minimal data management. Your MDM system might usher data around and improve it somewhat through automation, but you need data stewards at the helm to reap the full benefits of MDM.

What is the Objective of Organization?

At its core, MDM is all about improving the cleanliness and accuracy of as well as users’ access to your data. Organization — led by the data stewards and subject matter experts on your governance body — helps ensure your data remains clean and accurate and that users have the appropriate access to it.

Overall, organization should help provide oversight for data users, data managers and decision-makers who think about what data you need and where you need it in order to solve critical business problems. The key to making this organization effective is to keep all of your stakeholders involved and collaborating.