How to inspire people to make a change ✨

Key takeaways from our conversation on the path to effective data stewardship:

1. Change management is hard. To inspire people to change, make it as easy as possible for them to see the path to get there by creating tools to make new tasks easy to complete. A problem not only has to exist, but that problem needs to be recognized to exist. In the data governance space, legal regulations can help push us forward because they create urgency.

2. Data stewardship and data governance enable innovation. You see more of what’s possible when you know what data exists. Core systems form the foundation that enables cutting-edge work like AI development.

3. People have good intentions and want to get their work done and impact the organization. Don’t create processes where the only way to get your job done is to break the process. In the act of governing, remember why you started pulling data together in the first place.

4. Community engagement is incredibly powerful and hearing different perspectives is how we grow. We all face similar problems regardless of our role or industry. An internal community for cross-organizational collaboration is vital for knowing what other people are working on and collaborating. This not only helps you with your data, but also with your career.

5. Implementing effective data stewardship is a journey with companies at all different stages. Those further along the journey may have teams and infrastructure dedicated to this, along with executive buy-in. Others are working to make it happen at the individual level – where it often starts with writing down the definitions of your data (who created it, when it was sourced, intended use, etc.) and recognizing that someone else will use your data output, potentially not in the way you initially intended.