Let’s face it: governance (esp. data governance) is not seen as a fun or sexy subject. Words that typically come to mind when thinking about governance are:
▶︎ Boring▶︎ Bureaucratic
▶︎ Red-tape
▶︎ Restrictions
▶︎ Cumbersome
▶︎ Extra work
▶︎ Compliance
▶︎ Time-consuming
This reality actually makes me pretty sad because I know it doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve helped organizations to streamline and automate processes and governance to the point where people actually like them and deliver 100% compliance. Hard to picture? Check out our process governance case study.
The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way. The best approaches to governance can be seamless and invisible; a completely positive experience for your team (not just a *net* positive). By creating automated governance systems for your organization you reduce bureaucracy, compliance issues, extra steps & processes, and reduce time.
When done right, governance makes people’s jobs better & easier. You will always get 100% compliance when your governance is a quality-of-life improvement for your people.
– me, usually not talking to myself
The issue most organizations have with rolling out new governance (data or otherwise) is that they design systems that people must comply with in order to achieve a desired outcome. Maybe it’s extra steps in data entry or slow approval processes. There’s no challenge to the idea that getting the right outcome (for data, legal, etc.) is critical to the business.
Asking people to do THEIR work inefficiently for the betterment of the organization is demoralizing. People want to feel great and have fun doing their jobs. The solution is simple: instead of making your people work for your governance, standards, and processes – design your processes to work for your people.
Just automate everything
My experience has been that by anchoring automation at the heart of governance and standards, people feel like you’re helping them do their job. Typically, it’s the most menial things that are the easiest to automate.
What’s more: with the rise in AI-based capabilities, you can automate 10x what we could five years ago with about the same level of effort & investment.
Here are some examples of governance and process automation that people will love:
▶︎ Real-time data validation on data entry systems: catching errors when & where they happen saves people massive amounts of time, allowing them to get on with things.▶︎ Simple automation example: email field validation in a sales CRM interface
▶︎ AI automation example: scanning an agency’s response to brief (RTB) to validate that it addresses every issue outlines in the client brief
▶︎ Automated approval workflows for data access requests: pre-screen work on submission before human approval; reducing back-and-forth and inefficiently looped approval processes.
▶︎ Simple automation example: scan media files immediately on submission for dimensions and quality (i.e. bitrate, pixel density, etc.)
▶︎ AI automation example: generating real-time feedback on written copy for basic brand (tone & style) and legal (T&Cs) criteria before sending for legal review
▶︎ Compliance monitoring automation for data privacy regulations: autonomously scanning data for adherence to regulations (i.e. GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA)
▶︎ Simple automation example: an automated bot or scheduled job (no human involvement) that maintains a regulatory-compliant clone of a sensitive database (i.e. stripping out personally identifiable information aka PII) to be freely used for reporting and analysis
▶︎ AI automation example: scans sensitive documents (prescriptions, doctor notes, etc.) to automate the logging and retention of information in secure & encrypted databases without human data entry
▶︎ Automated version control and change management for data models: ensuring that changes to data models and pipelines are automatically tracked and logged for review and compliance with development processes and documentation standards.
▶︎ Simple automation example: automated scanning of Git commit messages to generate team emails and/or chat notifications when key data structures change.
▶︎ AI automation example: creating detailed standards-compliant code documentation based on code and tasks/user stories.
▶︎ Data-sharing governance with external partners: automating access controls and expiration dates for shared data to ensure compliance with legal agreements and privacy laws.
▶︎ Simple automation example: automatically revoking user access to sensitive documents after a set period of time (i.e. from time access is granted or from time of last access).
▶︎ AI automation example: monitoring the usage patterns of shared data to produce consumption reports that flag unusual or unexpected access behaviors for investigations.
▶︎ BONUS: design an AI-powered document access request portal for users to self-serve requests and route approvals based on requestors’ roles in the organization
▶︎ Data quality & validation across systems: identify and resolve inconsistencies in data represented or reported on by independent systems.
▶︎ Simple automation example: automatic comparison of same/similar data from different sources that resolve based on business rules, logs the event (with original/source data) and generates alerts for human validation/investigation
▶︎ AI automation example: flagging data inconsistencies and anomalies based on an understanding of use cases and existing outputs (esp. anticipating how data might impact complex processes like forecasts and budget-setting), generates contextual alerts on types and nature of identified risk
This is something I love helping people with. When you know that compliance is critical and current processes need to change, it’s always most effective to ensure that the UX (user experience) of your team is central to your new designs.
In other words…
When you create amazing experiences for employees & partners, you create space for those people space to be amazing at what they do. Increase job satisfaction and external sentiment for your business/organization/team while getting 100% compliance on nuanced and critical governance and processes!
