Master Data Management Best Practice #5 – Use Your Best Project Managers and People

This one may sound obvious, but as you staff your MDM and data governance initiatives, make sure you use your best project managers and people.

Make sure you can’t be derailed by opponents pointing to avoidable project management or organizational issues. You cannot afford to have this type of project fail, so focus on controlling scope, getting the requirements right, managing risks, and communicating effectively and often.

I’ve seen situations where clients have had simultaneous projects going on: MDM, data governance, CRM and ERP. Even though the MDM and data governance projects were the most crucial, foundational efforts, upon which both the CRM and ERP projects depended, the MDM and DG projects seemed to suffer from “brain drain” – where the stronger resources were getting reallocated to the ERP project.

This “brain drain” syndrome is a mistake – the technical complexity of MDM, breaking down the organizational silos, the cultural changes and other “soft stuff”, putting data governance processes in place across the enterprise, all of these factors argue for putting your best people on these transformational programs.

It may be “project management 101″ but don’t put your “B” and “C” players on your most important programs.

Please let us know – in the comments here or in the forums on the MDM Community – what you think of prioritizing your MDM and data governance programs and putting your best people on them.

The next article in the series is: MDM Best Practice #6 – A Long Term Program, Not a Short Term Project

Master Data Management Best Practice #4 – The Business Has To Own MDM and Data Governance

As tempting as it is to start and finish with the technology, it doesn’t work.

One model that I’ve seen work very well is for the business to lead the data governance initiative, with senior management being involved through a Data Governance Council (which makes policy for enterprise data), with Global Process Owners handling day to day activities in their own functional areas such as marketing, sales, channels, customer support, and finance, and with tactical aspects handled by business data stewards and IT stewards, under the direction of the Global Process Owners and the IT Global Solution Owner.

This three level model (Data Governance Council, Global Process Owners, Data / IT Stewardship) allows the business to set direction at the highest level and coordinate across the enterprise, while still letting the process owners manage activities within their own functional areas. It’s important to break down the silos which are so common in most of today’s corporations, because silos breed the “islands of data” problem. Reuniting and reconciling those “islands of data” is one of the major reasons companies are doing master data management initiatives in the first place.

When MDM is driven solely by IT, the business may not understand it or buy in. In some cases, the business may not even realize MDM is there, if it’s buried too deeply in the “infrastructure”.

The hard truth is that MDM’s nature as an ongoing program means that even if the initial project is funded by IT, the business may not pick it up in Year 2 & beyond – unless the business owns it.

I’ve seen many instances of MDM programs whose first iteration (driven solely by IT) failed, until they started over, recruited sponsors in the business, transferred ownership of the program to them, and took a more business-oriented approach to the initiative.

Please let us know – in the comments here, in the forums on the MDM Community or using the #MDM hashtag on Twitter – what you think of the need for business to own the MDM and data governance initiative.

The next article in the series is: MDM Best Practice #5 – Use Your Best Project Managers and People

Master Data Management Best Practice #3 – Emphasize the Organizational Change Management Aspects

Addressing the organizational change aspects of master data management (MDM) and data governance initiatives is critical to their success.

Outside perspective can be very helpful here. As I discussed in a recent article, “Org. Change and Data Governance”, organizational change management – as an applied discipline – is used far too rarely on MDM projects. They’re big enough to justify it, and they certainly involve enough corporate politics and cultural change to benefit from a structured approach to organizational change management. My firm, Hub Designs, applies org. change and communications strategy techniques to every project we do.

Most of what I know about organizational change management I learned from my friend, Dr. Burt Reynolds, who is now an Assistant Professor at Southern NH University. We first worked together on an Oracle ERP project at a software company in Massachusetts. One of the reasons that project was successful was the project leadership included a strong org. change component.

In MDM projects, a clear communications strategy that addresses all of the various stakeholders of the initiative, and communicates your messages to them using their preferred methods of communication, over the right time frame, will have a huge impact – particularly if you can tell those stakeholders how MDM and data governance are making a difference and helping the organization realize its strategic goals. Find every occurrence of increased revenue, reduced costs, and easier compliance and risk management, and pass those success stories on to the organization at large.

Please let us know – in the comments here, in the forums on the MDM Community or using the #MDM hashtag on Twitter – what you think of the need for organizational change management in MDM and data governance initiatives.

The next article in the series is: MDM Best Practice #4 – The Business Has To Own MDM and Data Governance

Master Data Management Best Practice #2 – Active, Involved Executive Sponsorship

MDM and data governance projects need strong executive sponsorship, more so than most projects involving technology.

To champion a change (towards managing master data as a true corporate asset) is going to mean significant cultural disruption. In most companies, that type of change is best driven “top down”.

Don’t try to start until this is in place. Work on your elevator pitch, reach out to senior management and educate them on master data management, and work on recruiting your executive sponsors.

MDM and data governance programs are typically not very successful from the “bottom up”. They may start that way, and even show a few small wins, but you’ve got to get the “C suite” interested and engaged at some point in order to get the budget money and the political “juice” you’ll need.

Don’t forget that data governance is largely a political function. I’ve always liked Jill Dyche’s definition of data governance: “Data governance is the decision-rights and policymaking for corporate data, while data management is the tactical execution of those policies.”

When you see the word “decision rights” and “policymaking” next to the words “corporate data”, you know that you’re dealing with an area that is more political than technological. But we need to embrace that, for that is the reality of data governance (or as my friends at Evaxyx in the UK like to call it, “data government”).

And if you think that anything in the enterprise can succeed that is so strongly political without the explicit and continuing support of senior management, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that I’m dying to sell you.

Please let us know – in the comments here or in the forums on the MDM Community – what you think of the political nature of data governance and the need for active, involved executive sponsorship of MDM projects.

The next article in the series is: MDM Best Practice #3 – Emphasize the Organizational Change Management Aspects