Data governance - “With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility”

Karim Jessani, Data Consultant leading our Canadian data team, recaps his talk on data governance and the cloud at the Canadian RegTech Association’s 2021 conference on the #Innovation Game ~ Adopting #RegTech in a #DigitalAge' .
Home · Insights · Data governance - “With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility”
Date posted
20 December 2021
Reading time
3 minutes
Karim Jessani
Data Consultant ·

Data Governance

 

I am the first to agree that documentation of a system is tedious and I make my livelihood based on helping companies manage the knowledge around governance both from a proactive and reactive approach. But without getting governance consistently documented, you simply never know what you know and what you don’t. 

 

I was asked to speak at a data conference and to be part of a panel for data governance experts on how to deal with the concept of “Data in the Cloud”.  The event highlighted the importance of data governance and its future as a key asset within organizations.  The key question organizations are asking is: “Are we doing the right things with individuals’ data and can we serve our customers better with the use of that information?” 

 

I received the questions beforehand so as I can prepare to answer for clients that are either starting this journey or are encountering difficulties with this journey.  Once we were “miked up”, after the 1st question, as the moderator was sitting right next to me, he whispered ever so slightly that he really is not comfortable reading from a paper and with pre-defined questions and let's just “Wing it”.  The next question to me was as expected one that I had no preparation for, but one that really resonated with my clients in previous organizations.   

“Data Governance” is a journey, how would you advise a client to start?   

Technology always wants the latest and greatest product and you have to weigh that with Risk in terms of Governance.   

It was both an enlightening and exciting adventure. A famous quote by a very famous uncle said 

“With great power, comes great responsibility”.  I like to equate this to data governance.  Organizations are coming to a realization that they hold the responsibility of their client’s data and with it comes how will they advance their Data Governance Strategy.  Its starts off with something my son told me when he was in Middle School – “Dad, If you don’t know that you don’t know, then how do you know”.  I advise understanding first what you have, establishing a foundation, laying down that foundation then the future state becomes much more clearer and attainable. 

 

After an hour of discussing how clients can achieve that pinnacle goal of saying we can implement a data governance strategy, we bid adieu to each other.  We did come to a realization that even though we all came from different steams, the problems that our clients faced were very similar in nature. Our advice also was there is no “magic wand” that we can wave which will accelerate a data governance strategy.   

Being a “Marvel Fan”, I continue to advise organizations: 

  1. Develop a plan of attack (Analysis) 
  2. Assemble their team of superheroes (Data Governance Team) 
  3. Eliminate the villains (Dark Data / ROT etc) 
  4. Review and re-energize before encountering the next adventure (Reflect and Learn) 

 

If you’re interested in starting or improving your data governance strategy, don’t hesitate to get in touch here.  

About the author

Karim Jessani
Data Consultant ·
Karim Jessani is a Data Consultant - principal level at Kainos. Leading the Kainos data team in Canada, Karim is passionate about helping organisations achieve their data governance and cloud goals. Karim has over two decades of experience throughout the entire systems development life cycle covering data management and information architecture, project and program management, software engineering, and development.