Discussions about the value of an enterprise approach to data governance often miss an important point: The difference it actually makes to anyone outside the IT department or the chief data officer’s (CDO) team.
That is, how do issues like data quality, data maturity, compliance monitoring and so on actually contribute to the well-being of a community or improve service to constituents?
I thought about that while listening to a recent GovLoop virtual event on data virtualization.
During the panel discussion, Eva Pereira, Chief Data Officer for Los Angeles, made the case for data governance by talking about the city’s effort to address the needs of its homeless community.
Numerous agencies gather data that provide insights into different aspects of the challenge, so to respond effectively, those agencies need to both share data and to collaborate, said Pereira.
“We should all be on the same page with regards to the goals that we’re working towards, the metrics that we’re looking for, and the outcomes that we’re pushing for,” she said. “We’re one city, and we need to be acting as a single solitary unit.” (You can download an executive summary of the event here.)
A Better Business Case
The idea of arguing from outcome rather than policy has ramifications when it comes to the budgeting and appropriations processes. If faced with skeptical leaders or legislators, you won’t win them over by talking data standards and policies. You need to talk impact.
The focus on outcome also is critical to winning over the business and operational leaders who are supposed to benefit from the data. Increasingly, experts, such as Gartner, urge data professionals to align their efforts with organizational priorities.
That alignment is one of the objectives of the State Department’s 2021 enterprise data strategy, titled “Empowering Data Informed Diplomacy.”
“The Department will systematically assess the value of data and analytics initiatives, from creation and analysis to mission and operational decisions,” the report states. “As the volume of data and enabling tools continues to grow, it will be incumbent upon all stakeholders to ensure data and analytics initiatives are targeted to effectively and efficiently support the Department’s mission.”
An Enterprise Solution
Industry leaders are stepping up to support agencies as they pivot to this enterprise approach.
The need for solutions is clear. An enterprise data strategy will not add up to much without an underlying data infrastructure. And it’s hard to create such an infrastructure using a mishmash of legacy solutions.
That’s the business case Snowflake is making for its new offering, The Government and Education Data Cloud. Snowflake describes it as “a single, integrated, and cross-cloud data platform that enhances mission outcomes and enables public sector organizations to spend more time on what matters most: caring for citizens and students.”
The solution brings together Snowflake’s data platform, solutions from Snowflake and its partners, and various industry-specific datasets.
“With Snowflake, organizations have the data they need to drive meaningful change in their communities, including coordinating hurricane relief efforts, intervening when a student is at risk for falling behind, and improving community or patient health across public health systems,” said Jeff Frazier, Global Head of Public Sector at Snowflake.
Again, it’s all about outcomes.
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