Does your data garage need help?

by Gwen Garrison, PHD

On any given weekend, I aspire to clean out my garage. My garage is a treasure trove of useful tools (gardening, power, and hand tools), seasonal decorations, and mementos of past endeavors. I'll admit I have one whole crate of 35mm slides from when I was a budding photojournalist. I whence that only about half of this stuff is still useful, and maybe only on an occasional basis.

When Daniel and I started writing our book, Unleashing the Power of BI: Enhancing Decision Making through Data Management and Governance, we reflected on our many conversations with non-profit executive leaders. Many of these leaders quickly recognized they had bloated operational systems that contained the clutter of duplicate records and near non-existent system connectivity to move good data throughout the organization. A few savvy leaders had created their own 'garages' of data in sometime massive Excel spreadsheets. They shared, often in detail, what they would do to find an answer a board member required.

Data governance is an organization's ability created disciplined routines that involve strategic vision, collaboration, and persistence. The promise of data governance is the ability to harness the organizational data assets for three reasons:

1. Risk mitigation. Knowing what data you have, where it is stored, and how it is used can help protect you from security incidents, loss of revenue, and reputational harm from legal liabilities. A good data governance system creates the necessary documentation to know both your data strengths and weaknesses and help with any regulatory compliance efforts.
   
   
2. Operational clarity. Executive leaders are challenged daily to find and grow revenue, cease, and retire activities and products, and create more membership value. Harnessing data may build on good executive instincts as well as quell capricious executive whims. It helps strategic planning be more specific, align to particular data measures, and drive more decision-making into clear space.
   
   
3. Better culture. Data exposes the limits of siloed units. Membership teams need to understand how their data are used in Marketing and Education teams. Creating organizational-wide definitions of data terms and documentation of use can have a bumpy start but soon finds strength in building upon ideas that come with collaborative problem solving. Data can facilitate joint efforts at understanding core business activities, needs, and future product development.
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Finally, let's get our data garage in more order by establishing, promoting, and coordinating data management and governance efforts.