The Universal Facts About How Data Responsibilities Work, In All Organisations – Part 3 of 5
In Part 2, I explained how data responsibilities extrapolate up an organisation and then introduced the concept of a Business System Owner and how such a role could be used in a very powerful way. In part 3, I explain how Process Owners, Data Producers and Data Consumers all work as part of a wider set of data roles and responsibilities; and also explain why formalised “data ownership” may still be needed, after all of these other roles and responsibilities are in place.
Please read my Disclaimer by clicking here.
A Process Owner is an individual that has been assigned as accountable for an end-to-end process, which may often span multiple organisational siloes. In a simplistic data management model, having Process Owners in place is useful to have someone to go to in order to implement changes to a process where that process is driving problems. For example, if it’s identified that a particular step in a process is driving poor quality data, then there is an individual who is accountable for that process and has the resources to make changes and rectify the process step in order to resolve the problem.
However, just as with Business System Owners, if you take the role of Process Owner a step further and also make them responsible for the way in which data is managed throughout their process; with the same constraints as those that apply at an individual level i.e. they are responsible for capture and processing within their process, and for the way data is passed onto other processes (including clarity on how the data should be used by downstream processes), but not for data that they receive as inputs, which they have a responsibility to push back and log issues with... this type of ownership also becomes complementary and very powerful.
I hope that this concept of responsibility for data, which applies at an individual level, team level, organisational level, and within the span of control of roles such as Business System Owner and Process Owner, is starting to become clearer as you think about each of these roles in the same way. This way of thinking also naturally aligns to the next two roles that I am about to introduce.
At a basic level, anyone who captures or processes data is responsible for how they capture or process it. Most people are both producers and consumers of data at some stage or other, and when producing or consuming data, are responsible for the way in which they do so. The same concepts apply to Business System Owners and Process Owners, and these all offer opportunities to formalise roles across your organisation to deliver a far more powerful network of responsibilities supporting good data management practices.
However, the roles and responsibilities that have been outlined so far, on their own, don’t quite provide the kind of robust, end-to-end "data ownership" that is often required for enterprise-wide data management to really work. Also, whilst these roles and responsibilities may seem to overlap, if implemented properly any overlap is totally complementary and will not be duplicative at all, because it leads to constructive collaboration between roles to accelerate to better ways of work. Each role is an important enabler for all others, which can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of data management practices across an organisation.
Please read my Disclaimer by clicking here.
Process Owners - for completeness...
Given that I've touched on Business System Owners, I thought it was important to address the concept of "process ownership" too, especially for organisations that already have such a role in place. Moreover, even if you only have the concept of localised process ownership, if you consider that a process has a set of inputs, which will include data inputs; that a process then performs a set of tasks, which almost always involves processing data; and then a process delivers some outputs, which often also involve data... I hope that you will have already spotted the pattern of responsibility that an organisation has an opportunity to follow and leverage.A Process Owner is an individual that has been assigned as accountable for an end-to-end process, which may often span multiple organisational siloes. In a simplistic data management model, having Process Owners in place is useful to have someone to go to in order to implement changes to a process where that process is driving problems. For example, if it’s identified that a particular step in a process is driving poor quality data, then there is an individual who is accountable for that process and has the resources to make changes and rectify the process step in order to resolve the problem.
However, just as with Business System Owners, if you take the role of Process Owner a step further and also make them responsible for the way in which data is managed throughout their process; with the same constraints as those that apply at an individual level i.e. they are responsible for capture and processing within their process, and for the way data is passed onto other processes (including clarity on how the data should be used by downstream processes), but not for data that they receive as inputs, which they have a responsibility to push back and log issues with... this type of ownership also becomes complementary and very powerful.
I hope that this concept of responsibility for data, which applies at an individual level, team level, organisational level, and within the span of control of roles such as Business System Owner and Process Owner, is starting to become clearer as you think about each of these roles in the same way. This way of thinking also naturally aligns to the next two roles that I am about to introduce.
Data Producers and Data Consumers
I've nearly got to data ownership roles, but before I get there, it's worth making a general point that all of the responsibilities that I have described so far, are variations on Data Producer roles (i.e. if you're the producer of data, you are responsible for its production) and Data Consumer roles (i.e. if you consume data, you have a set of requirements for what you want to consume and must use it in line with the purpose for which the data was originally created).At a basic level, anyone who captures or processes data is responsible for how they capture or process it. Most people are both producers and consumers of data at some stage or other, and when producing or consuming data, are responsible for the way in which they do so. The same concepts apply to Business System Owners and Process Owners, and these all offer opportunities to formalise roles across your organisation to deliver a far more powerful network of responsibilities supporting good data management practices.
However, the roles and responsibilities that have been outlined so far, on their own, don’t quite provide the kind of robust, end-to-end "data ownership" that is often required for enterprise-wide data management to really work. Also, whilst these roles and responsibilities may seem to overlap, if implemented properly any overlap is totally complementary and will not be duplicative at all, because it leads to constructive collaboration between roles to accelerate to better ways of work. Each role is an important enabler for all others, which can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of data management practices across an organisation.
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