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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Architecting Information for Business Transformation
As-is maps help
illustrate the
complexity of
information across the
business, highlighting
where it is used, how
it connects across
systems and where
issues exist.
Developing these vocabularies allows you to learn more about
your current state and anticipate potential obstacles to achieving the
desired future state.
What Are the Rules of the Road?
Once you know where you are starting from and where you are
going, define basic rules of the road to make sure you do not end up
with a tragic accident. Creating a governance framework should be
a contextual exercise at first, taking into account people, processes,
technologies and maturity. As iterative a development process as
architecture is, your framework need not be perfect or complete to
be effective. Start with what is absolutely necessary to achieve the
strategic business objectives.
Some common elements of a governance framework include:
» Creating an information governance steering commiee of executive
sponsors to provide guidance and make decisions across the business
» Developing a set of information principles to define the high-level
guidelines within which your governance framework will operate
and that will serve as a point to sense-check relevant decisions
» Identifying business standards that apply to your information,
such as naming conventions, mandatory metadata and taxonomies
» Creating data standards to describe documented agreements on
representation, format and definition for common data
» Defining data stewardship, or responsibility, for specific data assets
and assigning them to individual subject-maer experts to help
ensure effective control, quality and use of information
Take care not to assign more tasks to already busy people,
but remember that this is a fundamental part of your overall data
governance to ensure a high level of data quality and integrity.
What Does the Map Say?
Now you need to create the map for your journey. Different types of
maps (or models) can work well. Some provide directions in a format
business people understand, while other formats are more relevant to
a system.
