Manila is an ancient Spanish colonial city with American influences and a culture all its own on the rim of Asia. It takes several visits to appreciate that despite appearances and a host of American shops, businesses, and call centers, Manila is not a larger Honolulu, and the Philippine people are not just nicer Hawaiians. The culture, like the heat, is soft and pervasive and gently unique. The foreign influences, like the rain during the early June rainy season, hide behind clouds.
Two weeks ago I made my third trip to Manila, and hosted a Data Governance Council Maturity Model workshop in a modern hotel conference room for 25 customers spread across 10 tables of round. In my 8 hour presentation, I integrated the Maturity Model into the Six Steps to Smart Governance using both OpenOffice and the IBM Application Roadmap Tool (ART). Customers used laptops with the ART tool running to score their respective levels of maturity and I explained how the Maturity Model provides benchmarks to assess current and desired states of Maturity from which the Six Steps can be used to govern the use of data in a more scientific and repeatable way.
I’ve given these two presentations often, mostly in shorter conference presentations, but at least 12 times a year if not more. I constantly update my presentation with current examples and anecdotes to keep the material fresh but also to keep myself fresh and avoid the self-boredom of redundancy. But to each new audience, the material is fresh and I’m always amazed at how the Maturity Model transforms conversations from abstract theory to relevant practice.
I present five to seven charts then go to the ART tool and we run through three to six sub-categories of the model. Organizational Structures/Summary, Data Quality/Processes, Stewardship/Accountability, Risk Management/Accountability. During these phases I read the content for each level of Maturity and simulate a to-be and desired state by moving the slider bars over.
Most of the audience hears my words and ignores my gestures. They are engulfed in a personal assessment of their own Data Governance maturity. Huddled over the laptops, they discuss their perceptions of the model levels, argue about what the terms mean, relate the observed behaviors of 50 companies in North America and Europe to their own habits.
ART Displaying the DG Council Maturity Model
Four years after its creation by a group of 50 visionary Data Governance Council members, the Maturity Model still inspires and provides fresh evidence of its value and relevance. It excites audiences all across the world, and as a benchmarking tool there is no comparison. Every time I do this I wonder to myself how this material can excite as it does. But it is the common awareness of ad-hoc, episodic, IT adventures, crises, and budget constrained fixes over decades that motivates people to realize that their situations are not unique and that only systemic solutions will work.
After all these years, Data Governance is a real global market and the real work to make it a success just now begins.
Thank you Manila.
