Information Governance 2.0. Abstract. What is Information Governance?

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1 Abstract This paper proposes that every organization needs an Information Governance program and that a collaborative approach to Information Governance can be the most effective method for its implementation. Presenting feedback from industry surveys and comparing examples from other technology domains, a case is made that the lack of an established approach to Information Governance acts a limiter for many organizations. Increasing technology complexity and the need to solve more sophisticated business problems mean that Information Governance is needed now more than ever. There is not a consistent definition of the term Information Governance. While there is consensus that Information Governance includes Data Quality Management, it is difficult to get a consistent definition for the other aspects of the term. Because Information Management is a new field, practitioners have focused on what they know and have been wary of the more ambiguous aspects of governance as it relates to Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), Information Auditing and Return on Investment (ROI) management. Therefore, the focus of this paper is an attempt to provide a consistent definition of the most important elements of Information Governance (recognizing that it will evolve) that are part of a comprehensive approach. It emphasizes the importance of a collaborative approach that it refers to as Information Governance 2.0 that makes use of Enterprise 2.0 techniques and technologies. BearingPoint believes that the reason there is not an established approach to Information Governance fundamentally stems from the immaturity of Information Management as a discipline. We do, however, acknowledge the progress that has been made in this area over the past decade. This paper closes with a call to action around developing an improved competency as an industry that will bring together existing standards and lessons learned to build this competency in a consensus fashion. Information Governance 2.0 Although organizations have significantly increased their spend on information-oriented initiatives in the past decade, 1 we believe few have transitioned to the development models that give their information assets the requisite focus. As explained below, most organizations are now in a position where they recognize the issue and are looking for the most effective mechanism to move forward. What is Information Governance? It depends who you ask the Information Management profession has not settled on a single definition. Most definitions relate to Data Governce; we believe one of the better definitions to be the following: Data governance (DG) refers to the overall management of the availability, usability, integrity, and security of the data employed in an enterprise. A sound data governance program includes a governing body or council, a defined set of procedures, and a plan to execute those procedure But what about unstructured content? And how does this technical definition relate to business Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 1 of 7

2 value? How does Information Governance related to the Information Management? On this last point it is believed the definition from Strassman best defines the topic: "Governance" is what information management is mostly all about. Information management is the process by which those who set policy guide those who follow policy. Governance concerns power, and applying an understanding of the distribution and sharing of power to the management of information technologies 3 Strassman s article initially proposed the concept of Networked Information Governance. At the time of its authoring in 2001, networked business models were continuing to grow in popularity, from the U.S. military to the most agile Fortune 2000 organizations. What it pre-dated was the radical advances in collaborative technologies that have occurred since BearingPoint believes these technologies, often referred to as Web 2.0, are important enablers for a more effective approach to Governance. Governing the World Wide Web The web is the ultimate enabler and example of a network effect. It is also the best example of how the right balance of IT Governance and standards can encourage innovation and solve business problems. These standards were at times limiting and the required technologies were not always available (especially communications infrastructures) but the right balance of centralized standards, innovation and new technologies are some of the chief reasons for its success. In the case of the web, the frameworks provided by standards bodies such as the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) have been particularly important. Web2.0 is built on these foundational standards to enable the next evolution of technologies and business models. User-driven collaboration means that the network effect is far more powerful that even before. Governance models make the complexity manageable. The Information Web From corporate fraud to failed personal protection acts, poor management of information has lead to a number of recent disasters - for government authorities and the private sector. This has resulted in increasing demands for openness and transparency from shareholders and employees, which means fundamentally 4 means better information. In addition, organizations must perform analysis as never before due to new security threats and increased competition. The web accelerated the information management problem that had been growing for years ever since organizations first moved to federated technology architectures. Many organizations now feel stuck in a web of information and they need a way out. The difficult position that most organizations are now in is that they cannot start over to get out of this mess they have to fix the problems from the past while they move forward at an everincreasing pace. The Need for Information Governance From their experience in application development and technology infrastructure, most organizations know that governance and standards are an aspect to getting control of these issues. Unlike a few years ago, Information Governance now regularly ranks at the top of CIO priorities 5. As part of this process, may organizations are trying to address their Information Management issues through centralized models. This model better supports the horizontal information flows across the enterprise first evidenced in 1987 by Zachman. 6 A recognition of this issue is a considerable step forward. Why Information Governance 2.0 Despite their recognition of the problem, many organizations are still failing. A recent survey from the Data Warehouse Institute lists that only 8% of organizations have implemented successful Information Governance programs. 7 Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 2 of 7

3 Part of this is because centralization within an organization is difficult. It can be hard to build momentum, may go against organizational culture and is often prohibitive to agility. As shown through the example of the web, governance is the key to the success of a networked model. A networked model can also be the key to governance. By making it easier to collaborate on the definition and implementation of common standards, methods and architecture this model can be implemented in a physically central, virtual or offshore model. Key Elements of Information Governance 2.0 To implement a a more collaborative Information Governance program, several elements will be required. Listed below are the most important factors to success, starting with the more traditional aspects of an Information Governance program. 1. Accountability. Due the nature of information capture and how it flows across the enterprise, everyone has a role to play in how it is governed. Many of the most important roles are played by individuals that are fairly junior in the organization as the root cause of most issues are at the data capture stage. There must, however, be individuals dedicated to Information Governance. These roles are filled by senior executives such as the CIO, Information Architects and Data and Content Stewards. 2. Efficient Operating Models.. The Information Governance approach should define an organizational structure that most effectively handles the complexities of integration and information management across the whole of the organization. Although there will typically be some centralization as information flows across the pillars of the business, this organizational model need not be a single, hierarchical team. The common standards, methods, architecture and collaborative techniques that are all part of Information Governance are what allow this model to be implemented in a physically central, virtual or offshore model. Assessment tools and techniques should be provided to move to these new organizational models in a progressive fashion over time. 3. A Common Methodology. An Information Governance program should include a common set of activities, tasks and deliverables to build a competency that is specialized for Information Management. This enables greater reuse of artifacts and resources as well as higher productivity out of individuals. It also helps bring out the commonalities of different Information Management initiatives across the organization. 4. Standard Models A common definition of terms, domain values and their relationships is one of the fundamental building blocks of Information Governance. This should go beyond a traditional data dictionary to also include a lexicon of unstructured content. It should also cover data in motion by defining common messaging interfaces. Business and technical definitions should be represented and the lineage between them easy to navigate. 5. Architecture. An Information Management architecture should be defined for the current-state, transition points and target vision. The inherit complexity of this initiative will require this architecture to be represented through multiple views, such as is done in Krutchen s Model 8. Use of architectural design patterns and common component models is a key aspect of good governance. This architecture must accommodate a heterogeneous technology environment that will need to change over time and quickly adapt to new requirements. 6. Comprehensive Scope. An Information Governance approach should be comprehensive in its scope, covering structured data and unstructured content. It should also cover the whole lifecycle of information, from its initial creation, to integration across systems, its archiving a and eventual destruction. This comprehensive scope can only be brought Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 3 of 7

4 together with an architecture-driven approach and well defined roles and responsibilities. 7. Information Value Assessment. Organizations place a very high value on their information assets and will view their organization as significantly de-valued when these assets are unknown 9. An Information Value Assessment should provide a mechanism to assign an economic value to the information assets an organizations holds and the resulting impacts of Information Governance practices on this value. It must also measure whether the return outweighs the cost and the time required to attain this return. This is an area where current methods are particularly immature but some models do exist. This is an area where industry models must greatly improve, similar to what has occurred in the past 10 years in the infrastructure space. 8. Senior Leadership. Senior Leaders face great pressure due to information management issues. CIOs, for example, must face a host of business users that are increasingly demanding about the information that they want and a leadership team that now blame failures on "bad data". In the post Sarbanes-Oxley environment where CFOs are asked to sign off on financial statements, the quality of data and the systems that produce that data are being scrutinized now more than ever before. CMOs are being asked to grow revenues with less manpower, new regulations around the management of information are getting in their way of being effective. Senior Leaders must align and work towards a common goal of improved information, while appreciating Information Management is still immature as a discipline and that there will be some major challenges ahead. 9. Historical Quantification. In the majority of cases the most difficult aspect of Information Management is that most organizations are trying to fix years of bad behavior. The current-state is often unknown, even at an architectural or model level. The larger the organization the more complex this problem becomes. Historical quantification through common architectural models and tools-based quantitative assessments of data and content are key aspects of establishing a known baseline to move forward. For such a significant task this assessment must be done in a progressive fashion as opposed to all at once. 10. Strategic Approach. An Information Governance program will need to address complex issues across the organization. Improvements will typically be measured over months and years, not days. Therefore, a strategic approach is required so that a comprehensive program of work can be implemented over long periods of time through multiple release cycles. The strategic approach will be at a level of detail that allows for flexibility to change but still meaningful enough to deal with complex issues. 11. Continuous Improvement. It is not always cost-effective to fix all issues in a certain area, but to instead follow the 80/20 rule. An Information Governance program should explicitly plan to re-visit past activities and build on a working baseline through audits, monitoring, technology re-factoring and personnel training. Organizations should look for opportunities to release early, release often but remember what this means from a planning and budgeting perspective. 12. Flexibility for Change. While an Information Governance program involves putting standards in place, it must have an inbuilt pragmatism and flexibility for change. A strong governance process doesn t mean that exceptions can t be granted, only that it must be known when exceptions are occurring. The Continuous Improvement approach means that some workarounds can be initially granted and then re-factored at a later point in time in order to balance shortterm business priorities. 13. Governance Tools. Measuring the effectiveness of an Information Governance program requires tools to capture assets and performance. Just as application development and service delivery tools exist, organizations need a way to measure information assets, actions and their behaviors. Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 4 of 7

5 Some of these elements may already be in use in a more formal Information Governance program. The elements specific to a Networked approach improve the informal network that exists within every organisation and its connection with the outside world. 17. Linking the Informal to Formal. The same principle of applying content categories to the informal network can be applied to more traditional governance processes and to link formal and informal assets together. Formal Information Governance processes are used to define this taxonomy. 14. Collaborative Community. Implementing a governance program will require teamwork and communications, often involving individuals that do not work together closely on a daily basis. A key enabler for the networked approach to Information Governance are collaborative technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networks that encourage user-driven content. These technologies can help streamline communications and capture content that is part of the informal network. 15. Organizing the Informal Network. Content classification through categorization is an important part of organizing the informal network. By building a content model that is easily populated through userdriven categorization, informal collaboration begins to take on more formal structures while still remaining easy for users. 18. Searching the Knowledge Network. Access to federated information will be key to the success of the program. As the implementation will span formal and informal networks and internal and external systems, Enterprise Search techniques should be implemented to make this information easily accessible. Security models must be put in place to balance user access with privacy requirements. 19. Collaborative Asset Management. The maturity of your business and technology assets should be a known quantity and this information easily shared across the organization. As part of the Information Governance programme assets should be continually improved and their effectiveness rated by the community at large and domain leaders. Whether they be re-usable Data Management Services or Governance Policies, collaboration is important to improving and sharing assets in a large organization. 20. Global Standards Bodies. Having an external perspective through a central authority can help to balance competing interests and work to a similar approach. Increasingly, organizations such as Financial Services institutions and Governments are 16. Aggregation of Ideas. Not all good ideas sharing information. This helps build a greater composite picture and distributes the have to come from the inside. Whether it cost of the effort among multiple parties. comes from online books or a discussion on More work needs to be done to improve the the web, there is no shortage of valuable maturity of these standards bodies. As techniques for Information Governance. Once a standard taxonomy is in place these explained below, BearingPoint has initiated a program to help drive this global ideas can be linked into an organization s Information Management competency. approach without providing information overload. Social Bookmaking techniques provide an easy way to bring linked content Even with a well-defined program, the right together and can make use of standard tags people and new technologies, it still won t be for organization. easy. Perhaps most importantly, recognition must be given to the magnitude of the effort required. A sense of teamwork and diligence are critical for the initiative to be successful. A Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 5 of 7

6 healthy sense of optimism should balance the recognition that there will undoubtedly be issues along the way. Call to Action Although there is significant work to be done, Information Management now has much greater visibility that it did only a few years ago. We believe that there is significant value in bringing the community together around the Governance 2.0 approach that exists using MIKE2.0. Beyond Information Governance, this collaborative approach to better governance could also be extended to other areas. The Leadership Community While individual organizations will be ultimately responsible for its implementation, BearingPoint believes that a central body and common approach is also required, similar to the work done by the W3C. users can offer feedback through comments. Aggregators include Information Management pure plays like the Data Administration Newsletter as well as broader technology sites such as and that have a significant Information Management focus. Industry bodies are a combination of the first 2 models in that they typically include expert opinions and bring together content. Examples include industry-specific initiatives such as FIMA and the Participants aim to improve their knowledge through shared lessons learned or to raise the profile of Information Management as a competency. Technology providers offer hardware and software solutions to Information Management problems. Although there has been significant convergence in this area over the past few years due to acquisitions by the big players, the increasing maturity of open source options is beginning to significantly impact this group. Due to the need to address historical issues, the challenge is arguably greater than that faced by the rollout of web technologies. For the effort to be successful this governance committee should bring together the efforts from the 5 groups that are most significantly shaping the Information Management profession: thought leaders, content aggregators, industry bodies, technology providers and systems integrators. Thought leaders have played an important role in making Information Management what it is today. Larry English, Ralph Kimball and Bill Inmon have written numerous book that have been become required reading for the Information Management professional and brought us closer to common standards and. architectures. Much of their communications are one way in traditional printed form or through seminars. Systems integrators develop custom solutions for their clients, making use of their consulting expertise, methods and vendor technologies. Information Management is viewed as a significant consulting opportunity for all the big players as global consulting revenues are expected to grow significantly over the next 5 years. Each of these contributors has their own business models that drive their interests: some make money thorough advertising, others from selling technology products, others through services. All have a role to play in shaping this new competency. The key is to balance these interests with the same techniques used to implement Networked Information Governance internally. BearingPoint believes that it is now time to bring these contributors together to develop a Networked Information Governance approach that balances expert insight, leading technology and raising Information Management as competency that includes a mature governance Content aggregators make it easier for a community of Information Management professional to get access to the content they need to solve a specific problem. Their content is web-based and increasingly offered through a model. A framework has been developed for this limited collaborative environment by which approach through the MIKE2.0 Methodology All Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 6 of 7

7 participants are welcome to get involved and the active recruitment process has now begun. Information Governance 2.0 In Action One of the most significant differentiators of the MIKE2.0 approach is that of an Integrated Content Repository, which brings together the open assets from the MIKE2.0 Methodology, shared assets available on the internet and internally held assets. The Integrated Content Repository is a virtual hub of assets that can be used by an Information Management community, some of which are publicly available and some of which are held internally. (agile development) and more organised when we are informal (collaboratively developing content). When we bring it together is where the value-add really comes in. 1 Information Management Market Size. Gartner 2005 Market Trends (2005). 2 Bitpipe. Data Governance (definition) < Governance.html > (2007) 3 Strausmann, Paul A. Information, Information Management and Governance. (2001) 4 Tapscott, Ticoll. The Naked Corporation CIO Survey CIO Magazine, January 2006 This is the full enablement of the Governance 2.0 approach in that it makes use of the collaborative, user-driven content built using Web 2.0 techniques and technologies on the MIKE2.0 site and incorporates it internally into the enterprise through mashups, social bookmarks and search technologies. Any organisation can follow the same approach as BearingPoint and integrate their internally held assets to the open standard provided by MIKE2.0 in order to build a community, create common standards, share intellectual property and reduce costs and improve quality through use of reusable assets. Beyond Information Governance We believe this approach be extended beyond Information Governance. Governance techniques can generally benefit from this approach from a corporate board decisions to managing compliance with environmental regulations. Some of the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 as being more agile when we are formal 6 Zachman, John. Framework for Information Systems Architecture. IBM Systems Journal no. 26, no.3 (1987). 7 Phil Russom. TDWI Report Series, Taking Data Quality to the Enterprise through Data Governance. (2006). 8 Krutchen, P.B. The 4+1 View Model of Architecture', IEEE Software, pp. 4250, (1995). 9 Hillard, McClowry, Na. The Economic Value of Information. < conomic_value_of_information > (2007) About the Author Sean McClowry is a Senior Manager at BearingPoint and leader of the firm s United Kingdom Information Management practice. Sean specializes in the areas of Enterprise Information Management, Enterprise Application Integration, IT Strategy & Transformation, Enterprise 2.0 and Open Source across multiple industries. He is a founding member of the MIKE2.0 Leadership Team and lead up the creation of the MIKE2.0 Methodology. Governance 2.0: Information Governance and Enterprise 2.0 Page 7 of 7