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Welcome back to the Reservoir of Ideas. It’s February now, so I guess that means that most of our New Year’s resolutions have gone by the wayside. Were “Become Data-Driven” or “Understand Our Data” on your list?
Many years ago, I attended a Tom Peters presentation where he said something that has stuck with me ever since. He was talking about deciding to make a change or to do something new. Diet and exercise are two common resolutions. He said that it’s easy to decide that you want something. It only takes a second and not a whole lot of effort. I want X. There. Done. But then he continued. You can’t stop there. Once you make that first decision, you have to continue making that decision. Continually. You don’t just decide once. You decide day-by-day, minute-by-minute. A lapse and you fall off the wagon. It requires ongoing discipline and willpower.
That’s a lot of effort.
And more often than not, discipline and willpower alone don’t work.
It’s not reasonable to expect to repeatedly make that same decision in the face of external pressures and internal fatigue. Behavioral psychologists have a few recommendations. The first is increasing awareness. Think smartphone apps that track your food intake and activity. Some might even remember Deal-a-Meal. Another is providing a sense of progress, linking observed results to invested effort. Most diet apps also track your weight, which will (hopefully) provide that positive cycle of ongoing incentive. A third is accountability and support, like Weight Watchers. You’re more likely to make better choices and avoid temptations if you know you’ll have to confess your sins to someone else later.
But even without embarking on a whole diet and exercise program, small structural changes can make a big difference. If you want to lose weight by not eating potato chips and ice cream, then don’t keep them in the house. That way, you only have to make the decision not to eat so many potato chips and ice cream when you’re at the grocery store.
Process and structure beat discipline and will power.
I can relate to that.
The contrast was very stark in my own life this past year. Among the things I wanted to accomplish in 2025, were to lose 50 pounds and to complete a half-marathon. I didn’t really have a plan for losing weight. Just don’t eat so much, I suppose. On the other hand, I started training for the December race in May. Three days a week. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. First thing in the morning. Over those six months I only missed three times that weren’t made up the next day: once because I was traveling, once because I was sick, and once because it was storming. Now, fast forward to the end of the year. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I completed the half-marathon in December, but my weight today is the same as it was a year ago. Structure and progress on the one goal. No structure and no progress on the other.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I did track my weight every day, and every day I could see it not changing. It turns out that discipline and willpower are still necessary: to develop the plan, to start executing the plan, and to sustain then plan.
Think about it like this: consider getting a plane airborne. Engines at full power for takeoff, then throttled back at cruising altitude. It takes a lot of effort and energy to get started. Not as much to sustain.
So, that’s a good start, but it’s not the whole story. You have a plan. You have a process. You have a structure. But are they the right plan, process, and structure? Because the next step is the doing it. Yes, having the plan, process, and structure make the doing it easier, but are they sufficient to overcome the sometimes seemingly overwhelming inertia of not doing it? Here’s a powerful suggestion:
It’s easier to modify an existing habit than it is to create a new one.
In other words, incorporate your new processes and structures into processes and structures that already exist. The more aligned and less disruptive the greater the chances of success.
Let’s say I want to add some strength training into my exercise routine, especially in the winter and spring when it’s too cold or rainy to be outside in the morning (or in the afternoon or anytime). I suppose I could drive to the YMCA to work out or buy myself an exercise machine if I needed someplace to hang laundry, but those would be big changes from the current routine. It turns out that the muscles I need to work on most can be strengthened with yoga bands. The hour that I already use outside can easily be repurposed as an hour inside.
The same applies to data.
You knew I’d eventually bring this back around to data. It’s not enough to just resolve to be Data Driven. It’s not enough for “We will have quality data” to appear as a bullet point on laminated card tacked to everyone’s cubicle walls.
So, most companies do take the next step and create a Data Governance Council and the Data Governance Council creates a bunch of new processes and procedures and meetings and reviews and approvals that they impose on the business and development teams.
This is where most companies go wrong.
A stand-alone group creating stand-alone processes. They both will quickly be ignored. Again, process alone is not sufficient. The new processes need to be incorporated into existing processes. Slide them into the standard operating procedures.
Inventory existing processes to determine where Data Governance and Data Quality activities can be inserted.
I’ve talked about it before. Distribute the responsibility for Data Governance and Data Quality, and centralize the support for those activities. The focus of the Enterprise Data team should be to facilitate this work. To lessen the burden. To make things easier. To lower the barriers to adoption.
If your company uses an agile development process, define a standard set of user stories. Don’t segregate the tasks. Integrate them. Make them part of the standard Definition of Done. Same for waterfall. Integrate the tasks into the project plan and ensure that they are delivered before signing off on completion. That’s the discipline it takes to keep the plane flying.
So, having Data Governance-focused New Year’s resolutions is great!! Now, take the next steps to maximize your probability of success and next year at this time we’ll look back on the accomplishments of 2026, instead of trying to figure out how we’ll make it work this time.
Feature Image: PhilThecoloreds, “Deal-A-Meal cards: Lose weight and become a stud like Richard Simmons.” reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/n3kanf/dealameal_cards_lose_weight_and_become_a_stud/ : 3 May 2021).
