Tug-of-War: How to Gain Consensus on Data Definitions
By John Bostick, CEO, LÛCRUM Inc.
The conundrum of today’s business data definitions involves trying to understand how businesses operate using manual spreadsheets, financial reports from the ERP system and external reports from market sources. This, coupled with the executive staff crunching their own version of the numbers, means success in gaining consensus on data definitions can be like a game of tug-of-war.
The Best Strategy
Having attended a military academy for three years, field events included marches, parades and military drills where structured formation was the key. Activities also included various intramural sports and games. One of the games was a tug-of-war using a braided rope that was 3 inches in diameter and 60 feet long.
Both teams assembled opposite of each other; there were about 12 hand-picked people on each team. One team had their strongest and largest members on the rope with one 230-pound person serving as the anchor at their end. The other team had 12 lean, muscular, smaller individuals on the rope including myself as their leader. If it was a bench-pressing contest, our team would have withdrawn before the event started. To be sure, their team had more muscle mass than we could have possibly mustered. Yet, as in most David and Goliath situations, it’s not the muscle that exults.
How did we win the tug-of-war? Short, coordinated tugs that started out at a medium rate and continue at a medium rate. No pulling. The muscle-massed opponents typically would all pull at once, only to find themselves losing ground from the minute the gun sounded. We won every single contest those years. We pulled together with no confusion.
Creating a Business-Sponsored Definitions Repository
Today’s businesses seem to be in an everlasting “pull” to find who has the right definition of margin, profit, customer, vendor, percentages of utilization, capacity and production. Why? There is a lack of business leadership or sponsorship at the top. These individuals often allow their leadership team to “own” the definitions by business line or business segment. This, in turn, allows their business lines to redefine the meaning of simple terms for their own use and potentially their own advantage.
The pulling back and forth between business units, headquarters, field locations, the internal audit personnel and general audiences happens in most operations today. Technologists have to be careful not to say that it’s just a metadata issue. Technologists and their systems don’t own the definitions, the CEO does.
The CEO and his or her leadership have to create a business-sponsored definitions repository that controls all business operations and reporting from the top-down. Those that do will create a tugging effect that will move their business forward. Those that allow for “pulling” similar to a tug-of-war will lose ground in their operations and with their customers, markets and ultimately profits.
