Data Intelligence

Zeenea Data Governance Framework | S02-E03 – Data Awareness

Actian Corporation

May 30, 2021

zeenea effective data governance framework episode 3 season 2

This is the final episode of the second season of the “Zeenea Effective Data Governance Framework” series.

Divided into three parts, this second part will focus on Adaptation. This consists of: 

  • Organizing your Data Office.
  • Building a data community.
  • Creating Data Awareness.

For this third and final episode of the season, we will help you use awareness support techniques that reduce the efforts needed to realize communicative tasks, make anyone aware of what the Data Governance Team is doing, and get buy-in and alignment at all levels.

Season 1: Alignment

Evaluate your Data maturity

Specify your Data strategy

Getting sponsors

Build a SWOT analysis

Season 2: Adapting

Organize your Data Office

Organize your Data Community

Creating Data Awareness

Season 3: Implementing Metadata Management With a Data Catalog

The importance of metadata

6 weeks to start your data governance journey

In the last episode, we explained how to organize your Data Community by building your Data Chapters and Data Guilds

In this episode, we will help you use awareness support techniques that reduce the effort needed to realize communicative tasks and create data awareness on the enterprise level.

At Zeenea, we advise to use the SMART framework to plan and execute the Data Awareness program.

What are SMART Goals?

  • Specific: What do you want to accomplish? Why is this goal important? Who is involved? What resources are involved?
  • Measurable: Are you able to track your progress? How will you know when it’s accomplished?
  • Achievable: Is achieving this goal realistic with effort and commitment? Do you have the resources to achieve this goal? If not, how will you get them?
  • Relevant: Why is this goal important? Does it seem worthwhile? Is this the right time? Does this match efforts/needs?
  • Timely: When will you achieve this goal?

The “SMART” Method for Your Data Teams

If you think about the level of reach a team has, you can summarize them in 3 categories:

  • The Control sphere is the one your Data Team can reach directly and interacts
  • The Influence sphere is the level where you can find sponsors and get help from
  • The Concern sphere consists of the C levels who need to be informed on how things are progressing from a high level perspective.

In other words, you will have to touch all the stakeholders involved but with different means, timing and interactions.

Spend time creating nice formats, and pay attention to the form of all your artifacts.

Examples of SMART Tasks

You fill find below examples of SMART tasks:

For the Control sphere, we advise you to do the following:

  • Deliver trainings (for both Data Governance teams as well as End users).
  • Deliver presentations dedicated to teams (Strategy, OKRs, Roadmap, etc).
  • Keep your burn-down charts and all visual management tools displayed at any time.

For the Influence sphere, we advise you to:

  • Celebrate your first milestones.
  • Organize sprint demos.
  • Display OKRs teams constantly.

And for the Concern sphere, we advise you to:

  • Celebrate the end of a project.
  • Organize product demos.
  • Record videos and make them available.
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About Actian Corporation

Actian makes data easy. Our data platform simplifies how people connect, manage, and analyze data across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. With decades of experience in data management and analytics, Actian delivers high-performance solutions that empower businesses to make data-driven decisions. Actian is recognized by leading analysts and has received industry awards for performance and innovation. Our teams share proven use cases at conferences (e.g., Strata Data) and contribute to open-source projects. On the Actian blog, we cover topics ranging from real-time data ingestion, data analytics, data governance, data management, data quality, data intelligence to AI-driven analytics.