Top five tips for writing a business case for data governance with Iron Carrot
Understanding the drivers
When you sit down to write your business case for data governance, you will be thinking about the drivers for data governance and the benefits for the firm.
In a previous article, I explored what things, internal or external to the firm, make now the right time for this business case. Is it client expectations, a lack of trust in the firm’s data, a lack of strategic data management, or a lack of communication and transparency of data decisions? Or is it something else?
Whatever it is, explain it in a way that makes sense to your reader and use it as the backbone for the story that you tell.
I’ve worked with many law firms, and while their drivers are all slightly different, two common drivers have appeared in every data governance business case I’ve read or written.
These are:
- Client expectations: “They want to self-serve and/or have deeper visibility into data that we can’t easily produce for them”.
- Everything happens in silos: “No one trusts the data, we’re managing our data for operational, not strategic, reasons, and we have a lack of communication and transparency of data decisions.”
Crafting a business case that will land
When doing anything in a law firm, you need to get stakeholder buy-in by explaining what’s in it for them. That means you will need to understand the benefits of data governance for your firm clearly to make it personal for each and every stakeholder that you need to support, endorse, and approve your business case.
Remember that landing a business case is as much about the individual conversations that you have with your stakeholders as the business case document itself. You can use early conversations and the questions these stakeholders ask as a guide to what you need to include.
Top 5 tips for writing a business case for data governance.
1. Try to tie it to the firm’s strategy using examples of drivers and benefits which support data governance as an enabler.
I recommend looking at the firm’s strategy, innovation strategy, practice and business services business plans. These will give you a good sense of what the firm expects (whether it’s explicit ‘data’ or not).
There is no point in having the firm’s strategy bobbing along like a balloon without connecting it to the practical steps needed for data governance on the ground. Someone needs to hold the string, making that connection – and that’s you.
Use your data governance business case to clearly explain how and why it supports or enables the firm to deliver its strategy, business plans, and goals.
2. Assume that your audience knows nothing about data governance and explain why they need to manage data like a critical strategic asset.
It never hurts to explain the obvious in a business case. So, set out what you know that the readers probably won’t. Definitions and clear statements are your best approach. For example, open by setting out that data governance aims to help ensure that critical data has meaning.
Explain that accountable and responsible people (owners and stewards) are managing it properly. Then, share the result: the firm’s data will be consistent, of good quality, compliant with regulations, trusted, and available to the people who need to use it to do their jobs.
You also need to clarify why data governance is important now. Most people focus on why and how data governance is essential for law firms because data is an economic asset. It can help firms improve their operations, increase revenue, solidify client relationships, produce new revenue streams, improve the quality of current products, establish competitive differentiation, allow innovation, and reduce risks.
These are all quite broad statements. Again, you should tailor this to align with your firm’s strategic goals and how data governance can help achieve or enable them.
3. Frame your implementation proposal by focusing on the firm’s people and how data governance roles already exist informally.
When you build your business case, you should also explain how data governance will be implemented. I always put the firm’s people first and focus on identifying and formalising the accountabilities and responsibilities that already exist within each firm.
The people in operational data roles have a good understanding of where a firm’s data challenges are. They often have lists of historical problems that never get solved or regular feedback from practice users of systems and reports. You can use this knowledge to help guide your data governance vision and to set common data goals.
4. Reinforce that data governance is a firmwide behavioural change, not a blocker to innovation or change.
Many people will hear ‘governance’ and assume that it’s something that will be done to them or done for them. At worst, they’ll hear governance as a blocker or an unnecessary administrative overhead.
Your business case should explain that Data Governance is the framework that enables conversations between the right people to improve the firm’s strategic data management.
Data governance has the right roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities to support the firm’s people to manage better the firm’s data, which contributes to delivering the firm’s strategic goals.
There are documents, standards, best practices, etc., which can also help, but fundamentally, it is about the activities of people, mainly how they work together cross-functionally.
Data governance is about supporting and empowering people to change how they manage data for the ultimate benefit of the firm.
Your data governance implementation effort will focus on planning, communicating, and managing this change. This sets out your vision that Data Governance is all about people. It’s not a technology; it’s not a service; it’s not even a new department.
5. Take data governance technology off the table.
I’m always surprised when the first question people ask me is which data governance technology to pick so they can include that in their business case. Technology is great – but it’s an enabler, a helper, not the solution.
Suppose you don’t know what data you have, who is accountable and responsible for that data, what the data usage rules are, what the authoritative data source is and what downstream systems are dependent on that data. In that case, you will need more than technology to help you.
If you can’t answer those questions, you can’t begin to improve processes, remove duplicates, and leverage cross-functional data for reporting. You are not managing your firm’s data like a critical strategic asset.
Most people focus on the vision, benefits, cost, success and risk factors to the firm. You cannot forget to include a more personal perspective of what’s in it for lawyers, Partners, and other senior stakeholders. It is the support of these individuals which will ultimately lead to a successful data governance effort in your firm.
How Iron Carrot can help
Innovative law firms have big goals for improving the client experience through data innovation.
Through our extensive law firm background, we have developed a unique data governance road-mapping approach to help law firm leaders launch the proper foundation for their data strategy.
If you want to chat confidentially about how Iron Carrot can help your firm with its Data Strategy and Data Governance initiatives, then send me a Direct Message via my Profile, or book a call via the Iron Carrot Limited website.
