MacGyver: Data Governance and Duct Tape
Jim Harris in Data Quality tagged Best of 2010, Data Governance, Jill Dyché, Philosophy Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 3:00AM 
One of my favorite 1980s television shows was MacGyver, which starred Richard Dean Anderson as an extremely intelligent and endlessly resourceful secret agent, known for his practical application of scientific knowledge and inventive use of common items.
While I was thinking about the role of both data stewards and data cleansing within a successful data governance program, the two things that immediately came to mind were MacGyver, and the other equally versatile metaphor for versatility—duct tape.
I decided to combine these two excellent metaphors by envisioning MacGyver as a data steward and duct tape as data cleansing.
Data Steward: The MacGyver of Data Governance
Since “always prepared for adventure” was one of the show’s taglines, I think MacGyver would make an excellent data steward.
The fact that the activities associated with the role can vary greatly, almost qualifies “data steward” as a MacGyverism. Your particular circumstances, and especially the unique corporate culture of your organization, will determine the responsibilities of your data stewardship function, but the general principles of data stewardship, as defined by Jill Dyché, include the following:
- Stewardship is the practice of managing or looking after the well being of something.
- Data is an asset owned by the enterprise.
- Data stewards do not necessarily “own” the data assigned to them.
- Data stewards care for data assets on behalf of the enterprise.
Just like MacGyver’s trusted sidekick—his Swiss Army knife—the most common trait of a data steward may be versatility.
I am not suggesting that a data steward is a jack of all trades, but master of none. However, a data steward often has a rather HedgeFoxian personality, thereby possessing the versatility necessary to integrate disparate disciplines into practical solutions.
In her excellent article Data Stewardship Strategy, Jill Dyché outlined six tried-and-true techniques that can help you avoid some common mistakes and successfully establish a data stewardship function within your organization. The second technique provides a few examples of typical data stewardship activities, which often include assessing and correcting data quality issues.
Data Cleansing: The Duct Tape of Data Quality
About poor data quality, MacGyver says, “if I had some duct tape, I could fix that.” (Okay—so he says that about everything.)
Data cleansing is the duct tape of data quality.
Proactive defect prevention is highly recommended, even though it is impossible to truly prevent every problem before it happens, because the more control enforced where data originates, the better the overall quality will be for enterprise information.
However, when poor data quality negatively impacts decision-critical information, the organization may legitimately prioritize a reactive short-term response—where the only remediation will be finding and fixing the immediate problems.
Of course, remediation limited to data cleansing alone will neither identify nor address the burning root cause of those problems.
Effectively balancing the demands of a triage mentality with a best practice of implementing defect prevention wherever possible, will often create a very challenging situation for data stewards to contend with on a daily basis. However, like MacGyver says:
“When it comes down to me against a situation, I don’t like the situation to win.”
Therefore, although comprehensive data remediation will require combining reactive and proactive approaches to data quality, data stewards need to always keep plenty of duct tape on hand (i.e., put data cleansing tools to good use whenever necessary).
The Data Governance Foundation
In the television series, MacGyver eventually left the clandestine service and went to work for the Phoenix Foundation.
Similarly, in the world of data quality, many data stewards don’t formally receive that specific title until they go to work helping to establish your organization’s overall Data Governance Foundation.
Although it may be what the function is initially known for, as Jill Dyché explains, “data stewardship is bigger than data quality.”
“Data stewards establish themselves as adept at executing new data governance policies and consequently, vital to ongoing information management, they become ambassadors on data’s behalf, proselytizing the concept of data as a corporate asset.”
Of course, you must remember that many of the specifics of the data stewardship function will be determined by your unique corporate culture and where your organization currently is in terms of its overall data governance maturity.
Although not an easy mission to undertake, the evolving role of a data steward is of vital importance to data governance.
The primary focus of data governance is the strategic alignment of people throughout the organization through the definition, and enforcement, of policies in relation to data access, data sharing, data quality, and effective data usage, all for the purposes of supporting critical business decisions and enabling optimal business performance.
I know that sounds like a daunting challenge (and it definitely is) but always remember the wise words of Angus MacGyver:
“Brace yourself. This could be fun.”
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Reader Comments (5)
Great post, Jim.
I completely agree with you on this point:
Proactive defect prevention is highly recommended, even though it is impossible to truly prevent every problem before it happens, because the more control enforced where data originates, the better the overall quality will be for enterprise information.
If organizations can prevent the preventable, then they will be better equipped to resolve pressing issues unlikely to be foreseen. Unfortunately, too many companies treat all data quality related problems in the same way. They'll fix them when they find them.
Sad but true, I suppose...
Another great metaphor and another great post Jim.
I loved MacGyver, although I'm not too sure if I like him or Chuck Norris more :P
Both, are coolness personified!
I really like your point about the role being an evolving one. It must be. As resources, processes and business goals and strategies change, so must our roles and responsibilities.
To your last point, I couldn't agree more.
Reminds me of a favorite quote of mine from a favorite movie (Finding Nemo). Whhhaaattt? I like MacGyver AND Nemo:
"Good afternoon. We're gonna have a great jump today. Okay, first crank a hard cutback as you hit the wall. There's a screaming bottom curve, so watch out. Remember: rip it, roll it, and punch it." ~Squirt~
That, to me, sums up the Data Stewardship and Data Governance ride nicely.
Thanks for your comments, Phil and Jill. Your MacGyverisms are always greatly appreciated :-)
@Phil — Excellent point about defect prevention. It's strongest advocates believe (or at least they strongly advocate this position) that all defects are preventable, when the reality is that although some defects are preventable, unforeseen—and unforeseeable—defects will always arise.
As you noted, defect prevention can help organizations prevent the preventable, so that then they will be better equipped to resolve pressing issues unlikely to be foreseen.
This is a subtle, but extremely important point (and the subject of a future blog post of mine).
@Jill — Wow, that's the second Finding Nemo reference this week (See Surfing the Waves of MDM by Alex Bentley of Initiate for the other one). Methinks I will be blogging about Finding Data Quality next week:
“You, Data-Dude, takin' on the defects. You've got serious data quality issues, dude. Awesome.”
Hey you guys are too much! Not only was I a MacGyver fan (and looking forward to seeing MacGruber as a very cheeky take-off), but one of the best characterizations of all is in Finding Nemo - the seagulls (Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!).
I can't add much to your dialog - as I agree with what you all say.
Data Quality Management is a journey (overused, I know, but I'm jet-lagged and still on the beach mentally/emotionally). It takes planning, learning from experience, understanding you can't do everything and therefore requires constant application of PDCA (plan-do-check-act).
Although I'm not a huge continuous process improvement (CPI) guy (have seen it over-promise and seriously under-deliver, leaving a bunch of burnt-out devotees in the wake), some of the things we've learnt from Six Sigma and the variants of CPI are really useful in doing Data Governance and Data Stewardship.
As Jim and Phil stated, you can't fix everything at once. And as I've learned, some things aren't worth the cost of automating. So between automating everything and living in an expensive reactionary world, you gotta constantly plan, do, check, and act...
Aloha, everyone, and Mahalo for your contributions!
obtw, I've added small wire to my bag of duct tape, it holds things together quite well!!!
M :o)
Mahalo for your great comment, Marty.
Thanks for bringing up Six Sigma and CPI, especially the over-promise and seriously under-deliver pitfall it can all too easily become, since the future blog post I alluded to in my response to Phil will discuss what we learned, what we can still apply, but more importantly, what we really need to let go of in order for more realistic continuous improvement to be possible.
IMHO, continuing to use Six Sigma (as well as Kaizen) as if it was a shibboleth (and many fierce advocates of CPI still do) only does a disservice to the future of enterprise information management.
On a much lighter (and far more important) note, thanks for reminding me about the seagulls from Finding Nemo :-)