Data Governance Star Wars

OCDQ Radio is a vendor-neutral podcast about data quality and its related disciplines, produced and hosted by Jim Harris.

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Shown above is the poll results from the recent Star Wars themed blog debate about one of data governance’s biggest challenges, how to balance bureaucracy and business agility.  Rob Karel took the position for Bureaucracy as Darth Karel of the Empire, and I took the position for Agility as OCDQ-Wan Harris of the Rebellion.

However, this was a true debate format where Rob and I intentionally argued polar opposite positions with full knowledge that the reality is data governance success requires effectively balancing bureaucracy and business agility.

Just in case you missed the blog debate, here are the post links:

On this special, extended, and Star Wars themed episode of OCDQ Radio, I am joined by Rob Karel and Gwen Thomas to discuss this common challenge of effectively balancing bureaucracy and business agility on data governance programs.

Rob Karel is a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, where he serves Business Process and Applications Professionals.  Rob is a leading expert in how companies manage data and integrate information across the enterprise.  His current research focus includes process data management, master data management, data quality management, metadata management, data governance, and data integration technologies.  Rob has more than 19 years of data management experience, working in both business and IT roles to develop solutions that provide better quality, confidence in, and usability of critical enterprise data.

Gwen Thomas is the Founder and President of The Data Governance Institute, a vendor-neutral, mission-based organization with three arms: publishing free frameworks and guidance, supporting communities of practitioners, and offering training and consulting.  Gwen also writes the popular blog Data Governance Matters, frequently contributes to IT and business publications, and is the author of the book Alpha Males and Data Disasters: The Case for Data Governance.

This extended episode of OCDQ Radio is 49 minutes long, and is divided into two parts, which are separated by a brief Star Wars themed intermission.  In Part 1, Rob and I discuss our blog debate.  In Part 2, Gwen joins us to provide her excellent insights.

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