Why data governance projects fail

Less than 10%? Doesn't that seem surprising, given that business conditions are receptive to data governance because of competitive pressures, the desire for financial transparency and regulatory compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA? And those attempting to implement data governance read white papers and hire outside experts to help them.

But when we dig a little deeper, that 10% success rate doesn't seem so surprising, especially to those of us who have spent time in the data management trenches.

We know that data governance, like data quality, is not accomplished by listening to PowerP

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oint presentations or reading high-level white papers. It comes from continuous and vigilant hard work.

The key reasons for Gartner to predict this low success rate of data governance projects are "cultural barriers and a lack of senior-level sponsorship." I agree with those reasons, but there are other significant barriers. A few that I've observed in my discussions with clients are:

These are just a few of the things that can trip up a data governance project. What others have you observed?

About the author
Rick Sherman has more than 18 years of business intelligence and data warehousing experience, having worked on more than 50 implementations as an independent consultant and as a director/practice leader at a Big Five accounting firm. He founded Athena IT Solutions, a Stow, Mass.-based business intelligence consulting firm. Send Rick an email.

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