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#252 Designing and Building a Better Data Governance Approach - Interview w/ Lauren Maffeo

Kinda's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kindamaarry/

In this episode, Scott interviewed Kinda El Maarry PhD, Director of Data Governance at Prima. To be clear, she was only representing her own views on the episode.

Some key takeaways/thoughts from Kinda's point of view:

1. Always be assessing data literacy gaps and work to address them. Gaps don't have to be a bad thing, they are a chance for your people to grow! But ignore them at your own peril :)
2. A key aspect of your job as someone on the central governance team - or anyone managing a governance function - is to reduce friction, not add overhead. It can be hard to do that at the start of a journey but it should be a north star focus.
3. The phrase 'data governance' still has a stigma for many people from what often happens with a central-only approach to governance - processes and rules divorced from the actual business processes and the data which creates bottlenecks and headaches.
4. The federation of governance in data mesh helps address the bottlenecks but it introduces a new layer of complexity which can also cause some fear.
5. ?Controversial?: If you are asking people to take on ownership of data, you must make sure their line of business/part of the org has the actual capabilities to do so. Otherwise, they will greatly struggle to own and are likely to push back.
6. Don't talk about governance in the weeds to people, the toolbox talks, the policies and standards. Focus on what are you trying to achieve with...