Implementing Change Management

Processes and Alignments

Most organizations have string change management – or at least change control – mechanisms for technology. They usually have change management for software applications. They have change management for websites. And yet, many organizations do not practice structured change management for data.

Implementing Change Management

Why is this important? Some types of data – master data and reference data – should have tightly controlled sets of valid values. These values appear in thousands and millions of transactions; without change control, different repositories storing master and reference data get out of sync.

One role of Data Governance is to set the scope of data-related change management and to oversee change management activities.

 

Examples of data-related change management are:

  • Changes to allowable values for reference tables
  • Changes to physical data stores that impact the ability to access or protect in-scope data
  • Changes to data models
  • Changes to data definitions
  • Changes to data structures
  • Changes to data movement
  • Changes to the structure of metadata repositories
  • Changes to types of metadata included in a metadata repository
  • Changes to stewardship responsibilities

Some of the organizations I’ve assisted have wanted highly-structured, step-by-step change management processes. Having such processes have helped train participants to sync up their activities, and they’ve helped prove to auditors that formal, auditable processes were being followed.

Other organizations did not feel the need for documented processes. These groups were used to managing other types of change; for them, applying this to data was not a stretch.

Another organization I worked with felt it would be considered oppressive to ask all its business units to commit to formal change management. Instead, it set a requirement for change notification. Data Stewards were asked to notify the Data Governance Office (DGO) about certain types of changes. Then the DGO would communicate the changes to all known data stakeholders and would collect feedback about potential issues. If needed, the DGO would facilitate discussions about impacts and issues.

Read Next:

Setting Governance Roles and Responsibilities

Who does what in a Data Governance program? First, a group of individuals (or a hierarchy of groups) representing a cross-section of stakeholder groups makes a set of rules in the form of policies, standards, requirements, guidelines, or data definitions. (Or, they...
Read More

Governance and Alignment

Data Governance is a balancing act. On the one hand, you need to exert control over how groups create data, manage data, and use data. On the other hand, you need to promote appropriate levels of flexibility. You need to ensure that data-related efforts support the...
Read More

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Management Alignment

This type of program typically comes into existence when managers find it difficult to make “routine” data-related management decisions because of their potential effect on operations or compliance efforts.Managers may realize they need to come together to make...
Read More

Defining Organizational Structures

There is no single “right” way to organize Data Governance and Stewardship. Some organizations have distinct Data Governance programs. Others embed Data Governance activities into Data Quality or Master Data Management programs.

Read More

Engaging Stewards and Stakeholders

It seems like there are two types of Data Governance and Stewardship programs: Thriving ones, with highly-engaged stakeholders, and Ones whose futures are in question, since stakeholders and stewards are only sporadically involved or give only weak support to the...
Read More

Goals and Principles for Data Governance

What do you want Data Governance to accomplish?  Regardless of the focus of your program, chances are you hope to accomplish the following universal goals for Data Governance programs: Goal – Enable better decision-making Goal – Reduce operational friction Goal –...
Read More

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Privacy, Compliance, Security

This type of program typically comes into existence because of concerns about Data Information Security controls, or compliance. Compliance, in this context, may refer to regulatory compliance, contractual compliance, or compliance with internal requirements.This...
Read More

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Data Warehouses and Business Intelligence (BI)

This type of program typically comes into existence in conjunction with a specific data warehouse, data mart, or BI tool. These types of efforts require tough data-related decisions, so organizations often implement governance to help make initial decisions, to...
Read More

Focus Areas for Data Governance

All Data Governance programs are not alike. Quite the contrary: programs can use the same framework, employ the same processes, and still appear very different. Why is this? It’s because of what the organization is trying to make decisions about or enforce rules for....
Read More

Governance Communications

At a Data Governance Conference in Orlando, Florida (USA), a group of managers of successful Data Governance programs reached a startling consensus: They agreed that Data Governance is actually somewhere between 80 and 95% communications!How can this be? They said...
Read More