Data stewardship is one of the toughest components of data governance to get right. What is a data steward? What is it that stewards really do? What makes someone a good data steward? When these questions go unanswered, the result is often disenchantment with data stewardship. To help you keep
Each year, I'm excited to see the awards nominations for Data Steward of the Year come in. It's not just because we enjoy seeing the program grow each year (which is true, based on the number of nominations we receive). It's also because of the variety of the nominations –
Data stewardship is one of the prime positions in any data management organization. The business and technical stewards are the conduit between the organizing functions in the management structure (which determine policies and processes for data management) and the data management functions that perform the actual work, such as data
Since tomorrow is How-long-has-it-been-since-you-used-this-data-ween, it’s time to review your organization’s preparedness for preventing the zombie data-pocalypse. (Please Note: This should not be confused with your organization’s preparedness for preventing the zombie apocalypse, for which check out the resources provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by ever-so-carefully clicking on
One of the hottest job descriptions in the data management field in the last couple of years is the position of “data scientist.” The rise of this job description matches the rise of the concept of big data – data sources that are very large in volume, change frequently, and
I consume so much coffee on a daily basis that I consider it to be one of my food groups. This might not be as unhealthy as it sounds since coffee beans are actually the seeds of coffee cherries, which means coffee is essentially fruit juice – and drinking a
In my last post I discussed one of the important traits that I feel truly great data stewards possess – the ability to effect change. Today I want to talk about how you actually identify, train and nurture everyday workers into the role of data stewards. Most organisations don’t have
In the era of big data, Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger noted in their book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, “we are in the midst of a great infrastructure project that in some ways rivals those of the past, from the Roman aqueducts
With Data Stewards Day fast approaching I started to reminisce about the many data stewards I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past. What struck me was just how many people take on the role of data steward - but under the guise of conventional roles. For example,
The second part of my data governance primer series addresses ways to "mind your metadata." I can just hear the collective groans, and perhaps a stifled yawn. Sorry, but metadata collection is one of those necessary evils that may not be fun, but having it available as a resource to
