Making your metadata governance program for unstructured content sustainable

AKneifel and Associates Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
An Information Management Consultancy We help you build information environments where 1+1=3

Making Your Metadata Governance Program
for Unstructured Information Sustainable
Alix Kneifel
6/26/12

Presented at:
2012 Data Governance and Information Quality Conference (DGIQ)

Copyright © 2012. A.Kneifel and Associates. All Rights Reserved.

Agenda

 Definition of information governance
 Benefits of information governance and governing metadata on
unstructured information
 Information governance components
 8 common pitfalls relating to information governance
 8 do’s and don’ts for a sustainable information governance
framework
 Questions and Answers

AKneifel and Associates Copyright © 2012. A.Kneifel and Associates. All Rights Reserved. 7/30/2012 2
An Information Management Consultancy

Definitions

 Information Governance
A active framework for enabling an organization to manage its information

as a business asset. It includes people, policies, standards, and processes

for reducing ambiguity and risk and for enabling an organization to

effectively use it information to achieve business goals.


Characteristics of a sustainable
metadata governance program
 Create a metadata governance program that can be used for today’s
and tomorrow’s needs
 Useful
 Data Integrity
 Scalable
 Reliable
 Predictable


Benefits of information governance


Benefits of information governance

 Embraces a broad perspective:
 Engages the appropriate people in the organization
 Aligns terms, data, business processes and business needs
 Sets priorities for implementing change: systems, processes, products,
end users, etc.

 Provides structure and order at an operational level
 Defines, disambiguates, relates and maps
 Prevents unauthorized changes, minimizes disruptions to the user
environment

Benefits of governing metadata on unstructured information

 Small data set
 Pain point for everybody!
 Metadata on unstructured information is a
data set that crosses functions
 Data values may come from master data
or taxonomy


Information governance framework
Business alignment

Metadata
Baseline
Governance
Policies and WHAT Committee
standards and decision
WHY structure
WHO
• Organizational Participation
• Lifecycle Management
• Solution Quality
• User Experience
Change
management Data Stewards
process Operating WHO
HOW Guidelines
and
Procedures
WHEN,
WHERE

Operational functions

Common governance pitfalls

1. Unclear metadata objectives
2. Missing governance components
3. One governance framework for everything
4. An ineffective governance committee
5. An ineffective change management process
6. No metadata history exists
7. Metadata free-for-all (users know best!)
8. An outdated metadata governance framework


Governance Pitfall 1: Unclear metadata objectives
Issues
 Metadata objectives are not clearly defined
 Improve information findability
 Support Records & Information Management (RIM)
 Protect information
 Associate related information
 Include information into the
‘pool’ of transactional data
or products

Strategy
 Meet the organization’s goals and end user needs
 Be implementable!
 Start with industry standards (e.g., Dublin Core, ISO/IEC 11179)


Governance Pitfall 2:
Missing governance components

Metadata
Policies and WHAT Governance
standards Committee and
decision
WHY structure
WHO

Change
management
process Data Stewards
HOW WHO
Operating
Guidelines and
Procedures
WHEN, WHERE


Governance Pitfalls 3:
One governance framework for everything
Issues
 Too much emphasis on ‘governance’ and not on ‘what’ is being governed

Strategy
 Develop separate
governance frameworks for different data sets
 Combine frameworks that overlap


An ineffective governance committee
Issues Sponsor
 Governance committee members
don’t know why they’re on the board
 The sponsor doesn’t champion the
cause
 All members come from IT (or Governance Board
business functions) Chair Advisory
 Committee meetings are poorly Content owner reps
attended! Business application reps
IT system reps
Strategy End user reps
 Include advisory and doing
governance roles
 Define an authority model that works Data
Doers
for the board Stewards
 Define the governance committee
during the development phase SMEs, IT/System Owners, other
Stakeholders Extended


The change management process is ineffective
Issues
 Out-of-balance authority between change approvers and implementers
 Changes are approved but not implemented!
 Changes are not made across all systems

Merit Impact
Request
Assessment Analysis

Resolution Implementation Validation

Strategy
 Include all steps in the change management process
 Assign roles and clear responsibilities to each step

Governance Pitfall 6: No metadata history exists
Issues
 No record of the governance committee’s decisions exists
 No ability to compare the current metadata against the past
 Changes are made directly to a system

Strategy
 Retain the group’s decisions!
 Manage the metadata as an artifact
 Maintain artifacts of all changes to
consuming applications


Governance Pitfalls:
7. Metadata free-for-all (users know best!)
Issues
 Metadata exists but users still can’t
find information!
 No metadata consistency across
ECM sites
 The organization isn’t achieving its
goal to improve search across different
applications

Strategy
 Create and manage an enterprise metadata
standard
 Develop a taxonomy
 Include end-user representatives on
the governance board
 Build user input into the process
 Have a strategy to auto-populate metadata


An outdated governance framework
Issues
 Meta data changes occur outside the governance process
 More information findability complaints this year then last year
Strategy
 Include an audit plan for implementation and use

Assessment
Performance
 Have a plan to continually monitor and adjust
Audits

 the governance framework
 Metadata to meet the business purposes
Applications
Business Purpose
ECM Baseline
Support RIM Policies
and Committee
PDM Operational efficiency standards

CRM Content findability
Associate related CM
Data

SharePoint process Stewards
content Operating
Procedures
RM system Accurate reporting


Metadata governance sustainability dos and don’ts
1. DO clearly define your metadata business objectives
2. DO have a scalable governance framework that includes all
components
3. DON’T create one governance framework to govern everything
4. DO include members on the governance committee from across the
organization who have agreed to their roles and responsibilities
5. DO have a scalable change management process that includes all
steps
6. DO baseline your metadata and maintain it as an artifact
7. DON’T give end-users free rein of the metadata
8. DO monitor and improve your governance framework and your
metadata


Conclusion

 Metadata is a practical dataset that connects unstructured information and
structured data to meet business objectives
 Remember these essential components for a strong governance program
 Metadata baseline
 Governance committee
 Policies and standards
 Data stewards
 Change management process
 Operating procedures
 Remember these characteristics for metadata and governance sustainability
 Useful
 Data Integrity
 Scalable
 Reliable
 Predictable
 Avoid the pitfalls outlined in this presentation!

Q&A

Thank you for attending!

Contact Information:
Alix.Kneifel@AKneifel.com
(818) 326-6549

AKneifel and Associates
www.akneifel.com


Making your metadata governance program for unstructured content sustainable

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