Core, Shared Data Strategy
Extracted from the public Notion original. Notion record created 2019-12-11. Last edited 2020-01-08.
Most organisations have some form of data strategy in the sense that somewhere in the IT department there is a team that is seen to be responsible for date (i.e. has "data" in the tame name) and they have an understanding of what the organisation should be doing about data.
However, just like data ownership often crosses organisational boundaries and therefore challenges existing organisation strategy and governance, a data strategy must be agreed across a broad range of business units. This is where the challenges begin.
Your organisation might have a number of different "data strategies":
- The strategy of the data team
- The data sections of the IT strategy
- The data sections of the Corporate strategy
- The data strategy for a specific strategic initiative
- The data strategy for a specific business function; such as finance
When you are trying to implement a true data strategy you are not replaying any of the above strategies. Also, while you are still developing your data strategy you aren't making decisions without guidance.
You don't want to discourage other business units from have strategic discussions about their data just because you are having challenges agreeing an overall, enterprise, data strategy.
The solution this is to focus on a Core, Share, Data Strategy. This approach genuinely focuses only on those aspects that are understood, agreed, and committed to across business units.
"Understood" is the first hurdle. When IT departments write data strategies they include technical details - usually in an attempt to get "the business" to agree with their plans. But if that data strategy ever gets approved only the illusion of agreement will be achieved. If components are not understood then they are not part of the Core, Shared, Data Strategy.