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A Question of Stewardship

December 28, 2007 @ Technology Architecture & Projects from Bob McIlree

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Mike Kavis and Todd Biskie have some interesting comments regarding the use of Microsoft Excel by the business as an analytic and reporting tool, and also about the creation and flow of data within organizations. I deal with these issues frequently, so I'll throw in my two cents.

There are many issues why the business utilizes Excel spreadsheets for reporting and why the data issues that develop aren't necessarily an IT problem. Excel and similar tools are used for two reasons: first, because it is very familiar to most users and "good enough" to generate reports and analytic output; and second, such use is quick and effective without running through the IT gauntlet to enlarge the effort by "gathering requirements," making it a full-blown project, and waiting a long time for "results." These folks need to get their work done now, and if using Excel and appropriate data works for them, that's what happens - often very successfully from my observations over the years.

The second big issue is much more complex: the data underlying these reports and what is defined, transformed, and made available to users for business intelligence and reporting. The key problem to resolve here is the one of data stewardship, and that can only be effectively decided by one entity: the business, and not IT. The business owns the data, and IT owns and manages the infrastructure that collects data and manages repositories and adjunct facilities such as metadata. While IT can model data, build infrastructure, create transformations, and support reporting and analytic functions, the business must ultimately decide what data is relevant, timely, and necessary to conduct the organization's business.

This is not to say that IT should take a subservient role here. It also doesn't imply an elaborate governance structure that slows the efforts along these lines down. What it does mean is that IT cannot decide for the business what data and forms are relevant to the organization. Rather, as Todd wrote, IT must collaborate, facilitate, encourage, and support the business' efforts to get it's house in order regarding data - the ultimate stewards of the data are those that use and create it.

Introducing and facilitating the concept of data stewardship to large organizations can be akin to herding cats, because there will be differences (and thus, contention) within the business on what data and forms will be used across the organization. However, without an effective and consistent data stewardship function, the problems and issues remain, as they also will if IT tries to solve the dilemma on its own.

Instead of asking "What problem are you trying to solve?" we should be stating "Here's what we have available, what is missing or needs to be altered for your needs, and will this work in other parts of the business?" The former question implies that IT knows more about the business and its specific issues than the business does.

Which it doesn't, and never did.

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