4#14 - Rasmus Bang - Data Governance - Simple and Relevant (Eng)

«Sometimes it feels like you have CIOs going on Julia Robe’s in Pretty Woman spending sprees.»

Have you ever wondered why data governance often becomes so complicated that no one really understands what it’s about?
In this episode, we take a refreshing deep dive with data expert Rasmus Bang, who shows how to make data governance simple and relevant.

We explore the delicate art of engaging middle management, which is often the key to successful implementation of data governance. Through data governance committees and a focus on concrete business challenges, you can create both transparency and accountability that drive real change. Rasmus also explains how to bridge the gap between process excellence and data governance—how these disciplines can reinforce each other rather than compete.

Here are our hosts' key takeaways:

• The level of regulation in your industry determines your approach to. Data governance.
• Spent time in exploring what is necessary and relevant from a business point of view.
• Identify pinpoints you have today, to tackle them beyond compliance. This is where you show your value to the business.
• Storytelling is essential in data governance.
• Be able to see and communicate how your work impacts the business.
• Data governance is a peoples game.

How to start your initiative?

• Do analysis to translate your data pain points to business pain points.
• Assess the size and complexity of the challenge ahead.
• Adjust your lingo to make it understandable for the business.
• Dont be dogmatic - use existing structures.
• You need to adapt to your environment instead of hoping that your environment adapts to you.
• Make sure you find a strategy to talk to the conflicting priorities of middle management.
• Watch out for the experienced professionals- they can become bottlenecks.
• Make the value proposition understandable for everyone, also talking to these priorities on middle management.
• How can my department become better, more efficient, etc.?
• Include middle management representatives activity around the data itself.

Process Excellence

• Processes are seen as a precondition, while they are actually a result of the organizations culture, organization and people.
• Process owners often have a broad network in the organization and are therefore important to make data governance work.
• «If you do data governance right you get de facto business process ownership.» - you get the right people in place.
• Processes can give you a repeatable structure that is foundational for your success in e.g. AI.

• Have an approach and build a model that your business stakeholders can recognize and see themselves in.
• Dont focus too much on theory. Focus on what matters for your business and for your stakeholders. It needs to resonate.
• Dont try to fix a complex problem with simple solutions.
• «There is a difference between quick fixes and fixing small things.»

Transcript

Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Dette er Metadema en holistisk syn på datamanasjon i Nordisk. Velkommen, Jeg heter Winfried og takk for at du har lyttet til meg i dette episodeet av Metadema. Vår visjon er å promisse datamanasning som en profesjon i Nordisk. Vær så god med de kompetensene vi har, Og det er grunnen til at jeg inviterer nordiske eksperter i dat og informasjonsmanagning til å snakke. Velkommen tilbake til Metadema. Jeg er veldig eksited fordi vi skal snakke om en av mine favoritttopikker det er regjering Og vi skal snakke om en av mine favoritttopikker data regjering Og vi skal snakke om det i en fantastisk måte av å prøve å holde det enkelt og relevant samtidig, Og for det har jeg Rasmus Bang med meg i dag. Hei, Rasmus. Hei, jeg er veldig glad å være her. Fantastisk å ha noen fra Danmark og også en medlem av DEMA Denmark with me today, And Rasmus has been working with data governance for a while. He's going to introduce himself, as always, in a second, But what we're really trying to achieve by this podcast episode today is to dive into data governance from a stakeholder first perspective.

Speaker 1 1:22

What is the end user going to get out of it? Asking the questions, what's in it for me, for people working with data? Why should they care about data governance in the first place And how can we combine data governance with process excellence? And? I've been working in oil and gas for a long time and process focus has been a big part of oil and gas for et langt tid og prosessfokus har vært en stor del av olje og gass, Og særlig når vi snakker om høyere regulerte industrier, er det en sikker prosess og prosessmanageringsfokus, Men ikke i alle industrier, Og kanskje prosessmanageringsfokus er en positiv effekt eller even en pre-requisite til å få datagoverning i en simpel og relevant måte og å få den tilgjengelig og brukt.

Speaker 2 2:17

Så, før vi går dypere inn i temaet, rasmus, liten butikk jeg tror du kaller det en konsultansi som spesialiserer seg i data og masterdata-governance og masterdata-strategi. I'm quite more or less exclusively with the themes of data governance for more years than I can just count in my head. I think I've been at this on my own for about seven years. International companies and help them either get up and running with the data governance agenda or look at their current setups and sort of see well, where can we do some things, where can we tweak a little bit in order to get this working as well as possible.

Speaker 2 3:16

Dagliglivet er å jobbe med datagoverning og jobbe med det i en måte som er managelig og aksjonert i virkeligheten. Og jeg lever, hvis du er nærmere med geografien i Danmark, som mange kanskje er. Mange er ikke. Jeg lever i midten av Danmark. Det er en øyne som heter Fyn Og min kjefe og jeg beviste Jeg bor i midten av Danmark. Det er en øyne som heter Fyn, min kjøper og jeg begynte der om fire år siden og vi kjøpte et hus som er 150 år gammelt. Så hele tiden jeg har ikke jobbet har vært veldig fokusert på å renovating this huge, very old house. I think I've come to the conclusion that I've probably chosen the right profession instead of being a carpenter or something like that. I mean, i'm definitely more proficient now than I was four years ago, but still there's a long gap there.

Speaker 1 4:24

It's a nice mixture. right To work a bit with your hand and work a bit with your hands. Yeah, exactly, men det er en lang gass. Det er en god miks å jobbe litt med hendene dine.

Speaker 2 4:29

Ja, det er det. Jeg har et bakgrunn som arkitekt i IT. Jeg har snakket med en kollega min De var i stedet for å konstruere en gass eller et bygge, and at that point there was a, i think there was. They were constructing a was it a road or a building or something like that? and we talked about how nice or how satisfying it must be, if you're like an actual architect, to see the thing you make become reality, whereas many of us, it's a, and you have this powerpoint, and that leads to that powerpoint, and that leads to that powerpoint, and then someone, at some point, someone can double click an icon and then there it is. So, yeah, it is really satisfying to be able to do something a little bit more tangible, especially when you work in the data space, sort of on your day-to-day.

Speaker 1 5:22

Yeah, very much so I have to say we talked about this as well. We me and my family are going to vacation to Denmark quite regularly, and last year we went to a place not that far from where you live, and afterwards I talked to a lot of Danish people about where we went and they were like why would you do that? No one goes on vacation. Og så snakket jeg med mange danske mennesker om hvor vi gikk og de var sånn hvordan kan du gjøre det? Ingen går på reise i Kolding. Jeg vet.

Speaker 2 5:54

Ok, ja, jeg tror det heter Off the beaten track, ikke sant? Ja?

Speaker 1 5:57

exakt Så. Når du gjør ditt arbeid som en data-ansøkning. Hvor ser du og do you and we talked about this in a previous episode but where do you see you can make the most impact in an organization on data government? Do you think as a consultant, you kind of you dare to advise, but at the end of the day it's up to the organization to implement Or do you feel like you can actually make an impact and a change in the way organizations treat it?

Speaker 2 6:29

Yeah, well, i think there's a I think it's a bit of both in a sense. Or, if I could sort of turn it around, i think I have an ability to do as much of an impact as an in-house data governance specialist, and what I mean with that is that I have my and impact as an in-house data governance specialist, and what I mean with that is that I have my philosophy when it comes to data governance And I remember that you and I have discussed this online as well. There's a sort of guidelines, rules, compliance aspect to data governance, And then there is a business improvement and alignment aspect to data governance, and I think it's probably different depending on what industry you work in, and if you're in a very regulated industry, then the compliance aspect tends to be much bigger. I mean, you mentioned oil and gas, there's the pharmaceutical industry, there's banking, so there are industries that have a lot of regulations from a data point of view, but what I experience in many other industries that are less regulated is that there are some things you can do from a data governance point of view, and if you just do it on your own, then it's hard to really get anywhere, whereas if you use your time in finding out what's actually necessary and what's relevant from a business point of view, and if you can use your insights into the data and into the processes to really highlight that, then there's a whole other possibility of really making changes and really getting somewhere from a governance point of view.

Finding Goden Nuggets

Speaker 2 8:21

And I think when I come out and I work with people, then my approach is often to work with the people Jeg tror at. Når jeg kommer ut og jobber med folk, så er mitt oppgave ofte å jobbe med de som er i organisasjonen for å se hvor vi har problemer og hvor vi har begynnelser. I dag let's say customer data then where do people working in sales or commercial excellence or supply chain, where do they have issues and challenges due to misaligned customer data or missing customer data, or whether they see problems stemming from issues with the system's integrations? Or, if we're looking at product data, for instance, then on the life cycle between PLM systems, erp systems, pim systems, where do things tend to break and where do people tend to disagree?

Speaker 2 9:20

because in my experience that's really where you can sort of find the, you can find the golden nuggets and you can find the good stories, for i min opplevelse er det der du kan finne de goldene nuggetene og du kan finne de gode historiene som du tar til beslutningstakere, hvor du kan få dem til å si ok, det er en spørsmål og det er en utfordring, og det er noe som kan gjøres fra et regjeringssikt, eller det er noe som kan gjøres fra en IT-sikt, or there's something that can be done from depending on the organization and IT point of view, but it really depends on someone or some ones to sit down and say yes, this is what we're going to do, this is how we will tackle this thing going forward From a stakeholder point of view. I think there's a lot that can be done on that level.

Speaker 1 10:02

Yes, fantastic. And you jumped right into it, into the stakeholder topic. I like the idea about finding the golden nugget and the good stories that you bring to the decision, And this is really about rallying the troops twice. But it's not really up to you to do that as a consultant. Right, That has to come from leadership. They have to bring the in-house incentives.

Speaker 2 10:28

Yes, absolutely, and that's also where the good stories are so essential, and to me it's always a balance of what do you find of the good stories and how do you present it, depending on types of stakeholders you're talking to. Some people tend to be very sort of influenced by business type approaches, saying, well, we have this amount of people working on these things and we have these things completely fragmented. So if we put in some kind of rule, then we assume that there are so many people working on these things and we have these things completely fragmented. So if we put in some kind of rule, then we assume that there are so many people working on this, which is not an effective way and it's not an efficient way, so let's do something about that. If I talk to a CFO, that person then often that can be a yeah, that probably checks out. We should do something about this, whereas in other situations it's more a question of telling the good stories. I was working with a company not too long ago and we had a workshop with some of the people that sit close to the data creation processes, and one of the people there just said yeah and then we have 42 ways of creating customers And I said what Sorry, come in, She's like

Speaker 2 11:48

yeah, we have 42 ways of creating customers. And it was such a good thing, because whenever we were in meetings in relation to customer data, further on then being able to say, oh, by the way, did you realize that you guys have 42 ways of creating customers It's almost like the higher up in the organization we got, the more people were like are you serious? We have 42 ways of creating customers. We're going to do something about that right now. So it's always sort of getting to the point where you can tell something that really resonates with people.

Speaker 2 12:26

Så det er alltid en måte hvor man kan fortelle noe som virkelig resonerer med folk. Og jeg tror at min opplevelse er at det er der mange datamanageringsprofessionale jeg vil ikke si at de utfordrer seg, men jeg tror at vi som arbeider med data er så Det er virkelig en passion og det er virkelig en Det er død i detaljen, hvilket betyr at det kan være, men folk vil ofte virkelig komme med alle detaljerne og alle. Og så er det dette, og så er det dette, og så er det dette, og så er det dette details and all the well, and then there's this thing, and then there's this thing, and then there's this thing, and then there's this thing which is, i mean, it's very valid points and they often have some really good cases to be made, but the challenge is, if you take that to a head of marketing or a head of product management or supply chain or whatever it may be, then more often than not those guys are going to look at you and go what are you talking about? Why should I, why on earth should I care about this? I don't. I don't even understand what it is, what it is you're talking about, and much less how this is relevant. To me. This sounds like some kind of boring IT type thing. So go bug IT with it, And I think, as data governance professionals, one of the most important skill sets that we can learn is to be able to see and communicate how the stuff we're working with really impacts, er å kunne se og kommunikere hvordan det vi arbeider med virkelig importerer businessen og hvorfor det faktisk er viktig. Fordi det er viktig, fordi det er det som gjør ting råd. Det er der du har alle de. Jeg har fått boken et par år siden. Jeg vil ha lyst til å minne navnet Den svenske mennesken, tror jeg.

Speaker 2 14:24

I received the book a couple of years back. I wish I could remember the name, a Swedish guy, i think, who quoted a study saying that if you have perfect processes and if you have perfect data and sort of the efficiency there is, i guess, index 100, and then you reduce that to a data quality or process efficiency of 92%, which I think most companies I've worked with would say yeah, we're nowhere near an efficiency of 92%. Then the relative process efficiency drops to 50%, and I think that's really telling, because when you talk to people across organizations, then they'll always say there's this thing that doesn't work and there's this thing that doesn't work. and here we're doing some kind of workaround and this was supposed to be just a band-aid, but now we've been doing this for six years and now they want to open a new factory there. And what do we do about it?

Speaker 2 15:25

US å jobbe rundt og dette var bare en band-aid, men nå har vi vært på dette for seks år og nå vil de åpne en ny fabrikk der. Og hva gjør vi om USA og hvordan er disse tingene og våre salgsprosesser er holdt sammen med PowerPoint og duct tape. Så å kunne forklare alle disse tingene og hvor de er viktige og hvor they're relevant to senior management is really a key activity and a key skill, i think, to me.

Engang Middle Management

Speaker 1 15:48

That was a fantastic way of walking through this, and you already scratched our next topic of process. I'm going to take it a bit back to the stakeholders a second. I really liked your example about 42 ways of creating customers and the first thought I had is, like I mean 42? Jeg likte veldig ditt forbehold om 42 måter å skabe kustomer Og det første jeg hadde var at 42 er svaret til alt. Riktig, riktig, men det er noe du sa og jeg tror det er viktig. Når du snakker med leder, kommer du med gode historier og de sier, ja, vi må gjøre noe om det. Men hvordan får du fra ja vi må gjøre noe om det til en faktisk tangibel initiativ som du kan virkelig implementere?

Speaker 2 16:40

Ja, ja, det er en god spørsmål Og det er også en. Jeg tror det er ulike måter rundt det. Jeg tender til å like en oppgave hvor du mapper og høylyder en nummer av for noen utfordringer i en spesifikk datadomain og hvor du, fra et team-punkt av seg, prøver å si noen ord, til å si at det er dette som ikke fungerer. Vi er ikke i kontroll over VAT-kodene på kustomer, eller vi har ikke grossveit, netteveit og dimensjoner. That doesn't work. We're not in control of our VAT codes on customers or our gross weight, net weight and dimensions. Documentation is not consistent and that means that we're unable to do proper supply chain planning and that means that we're unable to do logistics, and it means So taking a, doing a bit of analysis. No-transcript, hvor du gjør en liten analys, hvor du gjør en liten analys. Hvor du gjør en liten analys Hva er kompleksiteten fra teknisk perspektiv, hva er kompleksiteten fra prosessperspektiv, og hvor mye av en kløp-effort tror vi ikke er dette, for det vil få disse seniorbusiness-stakeholdene til å se på det og si, «å, ja, det er rett, det er faktisk et stort spørsmål. Det er noe vi må gjøre noe om og det er noe vi må prioritere. For meg er det viktigste i datagovernevns, både å unngå beslutninger så de ulike typerne av datanærer, men også å identifisere og jobbe med og utvikle de spesialister, de datanærerne på de ulike nivåene.

Speaker 2 18:36

And working with and utilizing the specialists, the data stewards on the different levels. Because doing it like that really ensures that the thing you're working on and the thing you think is important is also the thing that these decision makers think is important. And I think it's a good way of getting out of the ivory tower type discussions. And getting out of the ivory tower type discussions and getting out of the sort of people are sitting around in a circle saying, well, we really ought to do something about that, but the business is stupid and they don't want to talk to us and they don't know what's best for them. So having that, having that link, i think, also just like terminology. So, for instance, i've had I was working at a place a couple of years back and it was a real eye-opener.

Speaker 2 19:25

I was working with a quite senior guy who had been working in data management for many years and we were talking about how, okay, so we need some kind of data governance council, we need someone to sort of somewhere to anchor all these things the strategies and the procedures and the direction and the roadmap and all these things. And we were thinking, well, we just got in touch with the CFO of the company, who was very sort of receptive to what we were saying, and we kept preparing models for how that could look. And then they kept being shut down of like, no, can't we just do it like this, or can't we just put this in finance? can't we just do? and we were making sort of more and more elaborate descriptions of it and everything. And then the guy who was sort of our immediate manager he was one of those guys who was sort of our immediate manager. He was one of those guys who was just like a project manager to the bone and we decided to implement this as a project. And then he said at one point he said, okay, all right, now we have this, now we need a steering committee and I'm thinking I should be involved, and this guy and this guy and this guy, and we were a steering committee and I'm thinking I should be involved and CFO should be involved, and this guy and this guy and this guy. And we were looking at those people saying, well, those were actually the exact same people we wanted to include in our data governance council, which was continuously shut down. So we just said, okay, well, if you guys want to call it a steering committee, we'll call it a steering committee.

Speaker 2 20:57

I mean, and I think that was a big learning for me, because I think, as data management people and data governance people, we can sometimes tend to be very dogmatic and we can sometimes tend to you know, it's like the old saying data governance is not a project and all that and it's not, but that doesn't mean that you can't use the structures and the nomenclature that people know and that they trust to work with to your advantage.

Speaker 2 21:27

So that's also why, when I talk about establishing data boards and data councils, then I tend to often say, when I speak to, let's say, a head of quality or a head of supply chain, whatever, like busy business people who don't really care about data, i tend to say see this as a steering committee for this data, because they know the concept of a steering committee, they know how much time to spend, they know what's expected for them and they know how it works. And if you do it like that, then they're typically much more receptive when you come and talk about the things that you really need them to have an opinion on. So sort of leaning into that approach has worked quite well for me.

Speaker 1 22:17

Oh yeah, fantastic, i think you need to adopt to your environment. Så denne oppgaven har fungert ganske bra for meg. Ja, fantastisk, jeg tror du må adopte til ditt område i stedet for å håpe at området skal adopteres til deg. Ja, og jeg liker det. Og jeg mener, hva er det 10-15 år siden Bob Sinners bok Non-Basic Data Governance kom ut?

Speaker 1 22:35

Ja, Han snakket om la oss bruke eksist, invasive data governance came out. They were talking about let's use existing structures. Don't hire a bunch of new data stewards and bring them in without any experience of the business they are looking in. Try to use the people that are already there, that are already engaged. Yeah, and I like your idea of then also adjusting the terminology to make it recognizable. I think that's what we are doing when it comes to AI, now piggybacking We don't talk about data management anymore. We call it data readiness for AI, exactly.

Speaker 1 23:11

One last question on the stakeholders, before we move on. We talked about a bit of the different stakeholders that you are talking to. We talked about a bit of the different stakeholders that you're talking to. We talked about how do you get from? oh, we need to do something to create a sense of urgency, to rally the troops. What I always found much easier is talking to senior, like top-level management. Once you get the good stories, once you can frame it in business outcome, business value creating way, it's kind of easy to talk to top-level management.

Speaker 1 23:48

The problem I've seen is in middle management, because they have so many other priorities, so many other KPIs they have to do, so this is just adding on to their luggage, and that's where I think the hard battles are fought when you try to implement good practices, good structures in data governance, and I've been looking into this. I've just read Freakonomics I love that book and they talk about incentives, three types of incentives. One is economic incentives that get people to do something, so business outcome, for example, that's an economic incentive. Social incentive, which is very much what we're talking about now either that pressure from leadership, the communication structures or the organization, how it's set up, that provides you with that social incentive or social backing. You have moral incentive. We talk about data ethics, we talk about responsible AI. So have you found any good strategies to address middle management, to get their buy-in?

Speaker 2 25:01

I think you're hitting the nail under the head there, because it's often the middle management, in my experience, that you need to, for instance, allocate data stewards. It's often a. Well, we have Bob sitting in the corner and he's our A2R guy and he's been here for 20 years and he's definitely the guy you need to talk to. Oh, but actually we have the year-end closing now and he's busy and he's also on another project, so you can't And that's a. It's one of those things where specialists are incredibly hard to get to and also I mean just sort of to put a spin on that probably one of the few types of people that you can't just replace. You can't go, you know, to a consultancy or somewhere else and say, hey, by the way, we need someone, we need to bring someone in that has 15 years of experience with these processes in this company, because there's only one of that, bob. I try to. One of the ways I try to sort of alleviate that is by doing this like the pingpoint type approach, where it's a. We really try to make sure that what is selected is something that makes sense from a business type point of view, not just from a. This is better for all of us and we're going to be in a much happier place, but sort of more bringing it down to earth. And and we're going to be in a much happier place, but sort of more bringing it down to earth and say this is also going to help you. And also one of the models that I like to use, and it differs a little bit from organization to organization, especially if we're talking governance in a master data setting and if we're, for instance, looking at, spesielt hvis vi snakker om regjering i en masterdatasetting og hvis vi, for eksempel, ser på noen av de store elementene som produktdata eller kustomerdata.

Speaker 2 27:07

Så jeg liker dette oppgiften av å komme tilbake til styringskommittéinspirationen før, av å ha en dataforum eller databord hvor du har den overflødige datanæringen satt på enden av tabelen, or data board, where you have the overall data owner sitting at the end of the table, but then you have a number of representatives like middle management, representatives from not all but many of the parts of the business that interact with this data.

Speaker 2 27:33

So you have people let's say, you're working with product data manufaktøring, du har mennesker fra QA, du har mennesker fra finansiering, du har mennesker fra marketing, du har mennesker fra produktmanusjement og så videre.

Speaker 2 27:53

The incentive structures much more aligned. Because then if you're in this forum and you say now we really need to do something to align our material numbers or we need to do something to standardize the way we cross weight dimensions of our products, then these people are sitting in the same meeting and they agree that this is what needs to be done and they have a data owner who's higher up in the food chain looking at them saying and that means that you need to release Bob so that he can help make the data standard for this. It's not a perfect model, because even in those types of situations you can be there where someone says, oh well, we'd actually really like to be involved, but it's not looking great from a resource point of view. But it gives you some clarity and some transparency and people can't just hide and say, oh, let's see when this thing blows over.

Speaker 1 28:59

Yeah, and then you get also the chance to show good stories of improvement, yes, where you say, okay, have a look at the marketing, look at what they have done. Yes, they put in those resources and this is the result. And then all the middle managers that are in the room that haven't done it, haven't put in those resources, and this is the result. And then all the middle managers that are in the room that haven't done it, haven't put in the resources, can really feel the difference and the impact and the pressure.

Speaker 2 29:27

Ja, exactly.

Process Excellence

Speaker 1 29:29

Let's talk a bit about process. Years back with a colleague I wrote a series of articles on the data-driven organization And a basic model for that is well on the data-driven organization And a basic model for that is well the people-processed technology model. We evolved that to include data as a prerequisite to that model. And then I remember very well I had a presentation of that at the business school and I said with data-driven organizations it's not that important anymore to have process excellence. Og jeg sa at med datadrivet organisasjoner er det ikke så viktig mer å ha prosess-excel. Og folk hadde det, de hadde meg for det, særlig folk fra veldig regulerte industrier. Prosesser er prekondisjon, er de Eller er de mer uttrykt av organisasjonen, kulturen, menneskene, the people of the technology we use. So what is your take on process excellence and where do you see process excellence can contribute to data governance or the other way around?

Speaker 2 30:29

Yeah, I think it's a really good question because I think most people would agree that there's a large interlinkage between those two things. From a data governance point of view, whenever I work at a new place, I always try to get a sense of what exists in terms of a process excellence model or process ownership framework in order to sort of to see, well, what should I move towards leveraging and where should I be a little bit careful. It's a funny situation actually that I tend to work in large organizations, so like sort of 10,000 people and up so large global companies at jeg bruker å jobbe i store organisasjoner så 10.000 mennesker og opp så store globale mennesker. Men hver gang jeg jobber i større organisasjoner, for noen grunn er det ofte utrolig snakkelig og lettere å implementere datakonverans i større organisasjoner. Og kanskje det er bare fordi de ikke har så mange konsultanter to implement data governance in smaller organizations, And maybe it's just because they don't have as many consultants running around saying, well, you need to do it this way that they actually listen to me. I don't know, But I think a part of it is that if I come and say, now we need to do data governance and we need to identify and activate data owners, then they don't have a whole bunch of other sort of control frameworks that they need to fit into everything, Whereas large organizations and again especially in regulated industries it's a whole different story, because, I mean, not only is there process excellence, but often there's also reglert SOPs og prosessommer som må ta opp telefonen når regjeringen kaller og vil gjøre en ekspertisering.

Speaker 2 32:32

Så det er virkelig noe å være kjent med. Try to often, when I'm working on data governance frameworks in places that already have process excellence, then I tend to look towards the. I tend to look towards business process owners and business process experts for taking on some of the data governance roles as well, and it's this, I think, to me, it's this, it's this thing where, in theory, these things might be different, Dase Kovenants råd også, Og det er dette, jeg tror, til meg, det er dette, det er dette tinget hvor, i teori, disse tingene kan være ulike. Well, ofte er de ulike, Men hvis du ser gjennom organisasjonen og hvis du sier hvem er den som vet om hvordan dette fungerer, Hvem er den som vet hva vi bør og bør ikke gjøre Og hvem er what we should and shouldn't do, and who's the ones that have power in the organization. So if they say, now we're going to do it this way, then people actually listen and they have a broad network in the organization And often it's the same people And in my experience, that's maybe one of the most.

Speaker 2 33:35

The people game is probably one of the most important things when it comes to data governance, Because if you don't have the right people, both on the data owner level but also on the like I mentioned before the level below, on the data forum level, then you can make as many data standards as you want and new processes and everything, and people are just going to take it and throw it over their shoulder. So to me that's really a key thing to get right. I think you mentioned before the thing you said that people didn't particularly like. There's also something I often say which people also don't like is that I tend to say that if you do data governance right and if you do data ownership, som folk også ikke liker er at jeg tenker at hvis man gjør data-governance rett og hvis man gjør data-ordning rett, så får man de facto business process-ordning, fordi man ender opp med de rette menneskene som er involvert, de menneskene som kan gjøre beslutninger og de vet hvem som er involvere til å guide disse beslutningene Og disse menneskene.

Speaker 2 34:40

Igjen, hvis du har mennesker med en certain attitud til å se disse tingene, de bør ikke være med. Om det er prosessekselens eller om det er statens regjering eller hva det er, De vil bare si ok, du suggererer at vi gjør dette fordi det vil hjelpe å forbedre going to help improve the way we get our products and markets. Okay, we'll do that. And then they'll look around and say, hey, you guys should be involved, you should be involved and you should be involved. And that can be just as effective as a more structured and documented approach, I think.

Speaker 1 35:11

That was a really good point. There It could be as much you could get the same effect out of it. The interesting thing about processes is now that there It could be as much you could get the same effect out of it. The interesting thing about processes is now that we are looking towards automation. We are looking towards AI. If you have a structured way of defining your processes, have in place a certain way of working that is structured and repeatable, you are also able to scale up quicker. You are also able to. We are also able to implement new technology quicker, yeah, yeah. And especially when you look into automation, if you look into agentic AI, they use these established processes as a guideline, yeah, yeah. So I think I've revised a bit of my skepticism to process excellence.

Speaker 2 36:08

Yeah, i think that's a good approach, i think. To me maybe it's because I tend to, i tend not to work in. Maybe it's because I tend not to work in very regulated industries and also I tend to work in, i tend not to work in small tech companies, og jeg bruker også ikke bruker jeg i små tekniske bedrifter. Men, for meg er det noe jeg ser mest ofte at folk sier at måten vi arbeider med vår data, måten vi arbeider med våre kjøpere across different sales organizations in the world, it's completely different. I mean, sometimes there's a difference in IT systems, erp systems, crm systems, sometimes there's not, but it's just getting to a point where you can go to a head of sales and say listen, there are actually some things you want to do, there are some things that are really high on your agenda, but you can't, and it doesn't matter how much money you throw at the problem and it doesn't matter what kind of flashy system you're going to buy. The thing is just not going to work because historically, you haven't had any opinions about how the customer data looked and how the structure should be, which means that you now have essentially 5, 6, 7 ways of doing this.

Speaker 2 37:36

So either you cancel your whole digital agenda, or you put a much, much, much, much bigger effort into trying to alleviate this through a super big and super complex and brittle system, or you start having an opinion about how the data should be, and if you want to do that, then we are very willing to help you, because it's going to be a help us, help you type situation And those things tend to be where people go oh, let's do that. Then There are things that are coming and going, but it's like a trend or whatever it is. But getting people that don't have any kind of data background or technical background, but that sort of have both feet planted squarely in some kind of business area, getting them to realize that you're actually in the data ownership business right now, because that's the only way you're going to succeed with the thing that you're really passionate about, it's probably one of the key takeaways I would give to this from a data governance point of view.

Speaker 1 38:44

The thing is, if you come with a message like this in the rest of the world they would shoot the message. Especially if you're from Salton, you gotta be the fall guy. But in the Nordics it's a bit different, because people sometimes they just need someone to just shake them a bit and give them a bit of a wake up call.

Speaker 2 39:04

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I haven't been shot yet. Well, I don't know. I've maybe been shot a couple of times, but I Ja, det er sant, Jeg har ikke blitt skjedd enda. Jeg vet ikke. Jeg har kanskje blitt skjedd noen ganger, men jeg er fortsatt sendende.

Data Governance simple and relevant

Speaker 1 39:15

Så, med alt det vi har snakket om nå i de siste minutterne, jeg tenker tilbake til vårt hovedtopp Hvordan kan vi gjøre datagrefering enkelt og relevant? Vi har snakket om dette, men kanskje det er en god idé nå å sammenlegge make data governance simple and relevant. We talked about this, but maybe it's a good idea now to summarize a bit, If you should say it in a short, precise way what does make data governance simple and relevant?

Speaker 2 39:39

To me, it's a question of having an approach and making a model that your business stakeholders can see themselves in. It's a question of coming up with something where you say we have some issues. They're not well, they're data issues, but they are relevant to what it is you want to do, because we shoot ourselves in the foot a lot, especially, for instance, if we try to make, when we try to make roles and responsibilities like frameworks, where we say and then there's this role and this role, det gjør at det utgjør seg mye, spesielt hvis vi prøver å gjøre råd og ansvar som framgånger, hvor vi sier og så er det denne rollen og denne rollen og denne rollen og denne rollen og denne rollen, og så har vi denne løyden og denne løyden og denne løyden og denne løyden Jeg Det var en finanskjøpere som bare så på sliden og jeg kunne se at han var til å countere Og på en måte sa han jeg er til å countere 21 ruller. Her Er du ut av dine gammel mennesker.

Speaker 2 40:35

Så, gjøre tinget forståelig, gjøre dem transparente, gjøre dem relevante, og jeg vil si her også og kanskje dette er der jeg kommer til å bli litt i tråd ikke fokusere for mye på teori, fokusere på hva som fungerer og hva som resonerer med folk i din organisasjon, for det er ikke viktig om du vet at DM-boken er tilbake og tilbake og du kan sitte på alle de ulike måtene til å gjøre sammenheng og gjøre alle disse tingene. Det er ikke det som får deg i døren, and you can cite all the different ways to do joins and to do all these things. That's not what gets you in the door. What gets you in the door is if you can make what you're doing resonate with the organization, and if you can do that, then you're already halfway there, because it will make it so much easier to actually do something about all the challenges that you have, also from a data point of view. That's my keyet, tror jeg.

Speaker 1 41:35

Gjøre det tangibel, men også gjøre det fælsomt, gjøre det noe som er faktisk mulig å innføre. Ja, exakt Nå. La oss ta oss litt rundt. Dette er fra min egen opplevelse, særlig når du er This is from my own experience, especially when you are the more you're integrated within a digital technology unit or IT unit, it's quite easy.

Speaker 1 41:57

Once you look at your landscape, you look at your challenges, it's quite easy to jump to quick, often technology-focused solutions Yeah, oh, well then we-focused solutions Yeah, oh, well, then we get a new data catalog. Maybe we need a catalog of catalogs And you end up with a fragmented IT data governance IT landscape that is solving everything, is solving a tiny part of the problem, but if you look at it in total, it's just disconnected. So how can you and I mean it's quite look at it in total, it's just disconnected. So how can you and I mean it's quite easy to get to that right, because you start with a very complex problem and then you try to fix it with simple solutions. But how can you ensure that you don't end up with that overarching complexity that gets you in paralysis in your analysis that doesn't get anywhere? and on the overraskende kompleksitet som får deg i paralysis i din anerlisis som ikke kommer til å komme noen sted og på den andre siden ikke ender med kveldsfiksler.

Speaker 2 42:53

Ja, det er en god spørsmål. Jeg vil bare gi en kjærlighet til Jesper Persson fra Sverige, som og jeg kodet en artikkel ikke for lang tid siden hvor en av He and I co-wrote an article not too long ago where one of the I remember that was one of his sort of strong one of the things he had strong feelings about was that there was a trying to remember how it was phrased that there's too much. We've come to sort of a tipping point right now where we're trying to focus too much on solving things with technology. Vi har kommet til en tippingspunkt nå hvor vi prøver å fokusere for mye på å løse ting med teknologi og ikke nok på å løse ting med prosesser og alignering. Jeg tror det er interessant hvordan filosofiet av IT, for så lenge jeg kan huske, interesting in how we, from sort of the philosophy of IT for as long as I can remember, has been to tell people in the business no, no, buying a new system is not going to make you happier. You're going to need to, you know, address the fundamentals and do what you can. And it kind of feels sometimes like you have CIOs going on you know Julia Robertson, pretty woman spending sprees, buying new things and new tools and new catalogs and all those things. So maybe that we should look at something we should look at again.

Speaker 2 44:18

But I think I would say I think there's a difference between quick fixes and fixing small things, because I've seen a lot quick fixes and fixing small things, because I've seen a lot of. I was working at a company many years ago where there was a guy who loved doing band-aid projects. It's just like so there's this band-aid this and band-aid that, which was basically always a shorthand for, yeah, we don't really have the time to fix this, so we're gonna slap a piece of duct tape on it. Those things are bad, tend to be bad.

Speaker 2 44:52

But what I like an approach and maybe that's one of the places where data governance is well positioned is you can say all right, now we're going to address this small part of our product master, material master thing, because we know there's an issue there. It's not going to be the whole thing, but we're going to fix the small thing because that's going to alleviate challenges in the process here and here and here and here, and then sort of work your way through those types of things. And to me that's one of the best ways of doing that because you show progress and you don't try to. You don't end up in a huge, you don't necessarily end up in a huge project, but you show a way of moving forward with these things.

Speaker 1 45:44

Thank you so much, and we are already at the end.

Speaker 2 45:48

This has been fun.

Speaker 1 45:49

This has been really really good. Before I let you go, rasmus, do you have any call to action for the listeners, something that you think do this when you are working?

Speaker 2 45:59

Well, apart from what I, I think the only thing, apart from what I already said is try to understand the business you're working. Try to understand why they're doing what they're doing. Get a sense of the core processes, the core things in your company, because it's going to make it so much easier for you, when you want to do something from a governance point of view, to reach out to people in the organization and actually understand them and actually help them. I think that's one of the things we, as data people and as IT people, we do. I don't think we do it enough. I think we should be much more curious on how our little world fits in with the broader world of the organization, of the company we're in.

Speaker 1 46:51

Fantastic Thank you so much Sure.