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Information Governance

Controlling Information as a Strategic Enterprise Resource

Published: December 10, 2007

Information governance represents the decision making activities for the second-most important resource of the enterprise – its information resources.

I would like to begin with a question. Does your organization currently have information governance? Whatever you might have answered, the real answer is a resounding “Yes!” It may not be the kind of governance you want or need, but it is very real. Decisions are made every day that either lead to effective management of information that enhances end consumer, investor and knowledge worker satisfaction – or to poor management of information, robbing knowledge workers of their time, stealing from investors and over-charging end consumers to pay for the inefficiencies and “information scrap and rework.”

Information Governance Defined

Before we can define what “information governance” is, we must define “governance.”

Governance: 1) the act or process of governing; 2a) the office, power or function of governing; 2b) controlling or directing influence: AUTHORITY. (Webster’s)

Information governance is governance applied to information.

Information governance: the act or process of leading, directing, controlling and assuring that information is managed effectively as an enterprise resource, including resolving information conflicts, across the enterprise.¹

In other words, information governance is the management role and responsibilities applied to information as a resource of the enterprise. Information governance is simply the execution of management leadership (direction) and control (assurance that direction is followed properly) in order to manage information as an enterprise resource.

Governance in a democratic society is based on leading, directing and assuring that the well-being of the constituents or citizens is provided for.

Information governance must be able to lead and manage the information resources in a way that benefits the needs of all information stakeholders, including internal stakeholders (knowledge workers as information consumers and information producers who are the suppliers of information) and external stakeholders (end consumers, investors, business partners, regulatory bodies and the communities in which an enterprise resides).

Historical Background of Information Governance

In democratic societies, there are generally multiple tiers of government, from the federal government at the top to the local government at the most atomic level of community. Each has specific jurisdiction and authority to assure the societal needs of the affected constituent. The premise of multi-tiered governmental bodies is that you should push the legislation of laws to the lowest level appropriate. In other words, do not issue laws at a federal level for matters that are truly local community requirements and provisioning. However, there are things that require federal legislation and oversight that cannot be performed by the local or state/province level of government, such as the security and protection of a country itself.

The governance of democratic societies must balance the good of the society with the individual freedoms of its constituents.

Ramifications for Information Governance

Enterprises in both the public and private sectors are federal organizations in one way or another. They are divided into different business areas, from operating divisions owned by a parent enterprise, or as a single enterprise divided into multiple functional business areas. It is in this context that information governance applies.

To be sure, information governance is not a discipline in and of itself. It is part of the resource management discipline of the information age resource of information. Information management is the discipline of applying sound management principles to information as a strategic resource of the enterprise. To achieve that goal, the enterprise must understand what must be managed (governed) at a federal (enterprise) level and what can be managed at a local (business area) level.

Information Governance Bodies

Information governance is first and foremost a function of the executive leadership team as the top management team in the enterprise. The key decisions with ramifications for information as an enterprise resource will be made by this body. If the executive leadership team is not part of a formal information governance mechanism, then that governance mechanism will ultimately fail. It will not be sustainable over time. Why? The executive leadership team will always make decisions that will override even a senior management level-appointed steering team. Period.

The fundamental organization structure of information governance is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Template Information Governance Structure

In very large and multidivisional enterprises, the executive leadership team may establish an executive-level sustaining information governance team or council. The most important requirement of this appointed sustaining governance team is that it has a membership that includes at least two of the executive leadership team members. Part of their role is to provide the linchpin from the executive leadership team to the sustaining governance team and back. Following, we will discuss the information governance roles that cannot be delegated by the executive leadership team.

Figure 2. Information Governance Structure in the Distributed Enterprise

Governance Body Roles and Responsibilities

1. The Executive Leadership Team
The executive leadership team is the ultimate enterprise governance body for any issue and is accountable to the board of directors as the official oversight council of the institution. Lori Silverman, a noted expert in quality management and organizational culture change, is right when she says any big decisions and policies will begin and end in the executive leadership team.

Peter Drucker likens the information age enterprise to a symphony orchestra, made up of many “specialists,” but who must all play as a single entity. In music, this is called “ensemble.” The CEO must manage the enterprise as a symphony conductor, getting all parts of the enterprise to play “ensemble,” or with “synergy,” to use Stephen Covey’s term. Like a symphony conductor, the CEO must convey the aim or purpose of the enterprise to all management and staff, and then direct the enterprise to operate to accomplish its single purpose.

“No matter what steering teams you put in place, governance of all vital information issues will begin and end in the executive office.”³

The executive leadership team is accountable for:

• Establishing the vision, mission, values and strategies of the enterprise
• Overall performance of the enterprise to all stakeholders
• The accuracy of the financial statements (CEO and CFO)
• Establishing and assuring information policy (as with financial and human resource policy)
• Resolving major information issues not able to be resolved at a lower level
• Effecting culture change and education required to transform the enterprise to an effective information age enterprise
• Establishing performance measures that are positive enablers of sound information management and information quality management within the enterprise

These accountabilities must not be delegated by the executive leadership team. The executive leadership team will perform them with knowledge and education provided by those who understand the information age paradigm, or they will make decisions based on the now obsolete industrial age paradigm in which most of them have been schooled.

Remember that your enterprise is in the state it is in precisely because of the status quo. You will never be able to solve today’s problems with the same thinking that caused the problems.

If you leave the executive office out of the governance model, you may just as well forget about solving your real problems. To do anything else, you will just be playing at governance.

Here is why the executive leadership team must be the top governance body. A healthcare insurance provider called me in to help them address information quality, as decisions based on poor quality could cause people to die. In a one-on-one meeting, the CEO told me that “Information is our most important priority.” In a separate one-on-one meeting, the CFO told me that “Information is our most important issue.” There was a steering team that prioritized the current projects. Out of 44 projects, the information quality initiative was number 22! The middle and senior managers who made up the steering team were out of sync with the executives. A post-mortem exam at my client revealed that nothing ever really happened to resolve the IQ issues they faced.

2. The Business Management “Team”
This group is not a formal organization or council. This “team” represents every manager who is not part of the executive leadership team, from senior managers to middle managers to line managers.

Their role is truly to operate as a “team,” as opposed to autonomous units. The reason? They are all interdependent to enable the enterprise to operate as a single system. Dr. Deming defines an enterprise as a system; and “A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system.”  He goes on to say, “It is management’s job to direct the efforts of all components toward the aim of the system [enterprise]….Everyone in the organization must understand the aim of the system, and how to direct his efforts toward it. Everyone must understand the danger and loss to the whole organization from a team that seeks to become a selfish, independent, profit centre.”⁵

The business management “team” is accountable for:

• Assuring that every staff member has a clear understanding of the aim of the enterprise and their role as an interdependent part required to enable the enterprise to accomplish its aim
• Understanding the information policies and assuring compliance in their business area
• Providing resources and training to enable their staff to create and maintain information with quality and to apply and utilize information effectively for the benefit of the enterprise and its customers
• The quality of information created and maintained (updated) by their staff. This accountability is for information quality required to meet the needs of their downstream peers whose staff require the information

3. Sustaining Information Governance Team
If you have a sustaining information governance team, they will provide the day-to-day oversight of carrying out the information decision making, with the knowledge of the executive leadership team. They will take issues and actions required of the executive leadership team to the executive leadership team. This includes information policy development, deployment and compliance assurance.

There must be at least two executive leadership team members on this governance body to provide the messaging and decisions between the executive leadership team and this body.

This team is accountable for:

• Providing for funding and project authorization for critical information initiatives
• Resolving information issues not able to be resolved at a lower level
• Taking issues to the executive leadership team that this body is not able to resolve or that can only be resolved at the executive leadership team level

4. Business Information Stewardship Team
The business information stewardship team is made up of all of the business information stewards who are subject matter experts, selected, appointed and rotated over time, to assure the quality of the business definitions, valid values, business rule specification and requested changes to these components.

As a team, the collective set of business information stewards may provide suggestions for information standards, information policies and recommendations for education and improvements to information requirements gathering, definition and modeling processes.

This team is accountable for:

• Resolving definition conflicts that are not able to be resolved by an individual steward or by a small group of stewards
• Recommending improvements in information standards, policies and processes

5. Local Business Information Stewardship Team
In large organizations, no one person may be able to understand and represent the needs of the many different information consumer groups for a given set of information. If this is the case, then for a set of information, you may select individual business information stewards from the various divisions or departments that may have unique requirements to make up the local stewardship team for that set of information. One steward will be the coordinating steward representing the others in the business information stewardship team activities.

This team is accountable for:

• Assuring the quality of information definition meets the various and diverse needs of the enterprise

Conclusion

Information governance represents the decision making activities for the second-most important resource of the enterprise – its information resources. Decisions about information are made day-in and day-out. The effectiveness of those decisions depends on how well those responsible for the information resource management function have communicated and educated the executives who lead their enterprise.

Accountability for information and the governance of information must be natural in order to be sustainable (i.e., accountability must be natural to an employee’s role and its relationship to information). There is a precedent requirement to implementing and holding people accountable for information quality. You must have provided the processes, methods, and training so people can actually accomplish the quality expectations of their customers.

The implementation of information governance must be natural and part of the current executive governance processes of the enterprise. No other approach will be able to maintain and sustain effectiveness.

Postlude

Information governance is the correct term for the activities involved – not “data governance.” It is not about making decisions about data. Information governance is a business executive leadership prerogative and their leadership role in managing information as a strategic resource. Peter Drucker states that, “As advanced technology becomes more and more prevalent, organizations have to engage in analysis and diagnosis – that is, in information. Otherwise, they will be swamped by the data they generate.”  “Data” is what is stored in databases. Data governance is what the DBMS does to prevent multiple create/update activities from causing data integrity problems. “Information” is the finished product presented to knowledge workers. We live in the “information” age, not the “data” age. We have “information systems” and “information technology” – not “data systems” and “data technology.”

Between the terms data and information, “information” is the executive-friendly term. I have had numerous executives tell me “data is a ‘clerical’ thing that data-entry clerks do or a ‘technical’ thing that systems personnel do – but I need ‘information’ to manage the business.”

To a high IQ! Let me hear about your feedback and experiences at Larry.English@infoimpact.com.

References:

1. Larry English, “Information Governance and Stewardship:  Implementing Accountability for the Information Resource” presentation. Brentwood, TN: Information Impact International, p. 17.
2. Peter F. Drucker, The New Realities: in Government and Politics/In Economics and Business/In Society and World View. New York: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 207ff.
3. Larry P. English, Information Governance and Stewardship seminar, Brentwood, TN: Information Impact International, p. 3.2.W.
4. Edwards Deming, The New Economics: for Industry, Government, Education. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994, p. 50.
5. Ibid.

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