Are You Stuck At the Kids’ Table?
Posted by 
Share this Post
Are your data quality experts stuck at the kids' table? Initiate's Marty Moseley tells you how to move to the grown up table
Remember holiday dinners as a child? The kids always sat at the small folding card table and the "adults" sat at "the big table."
I've been stuck at the kids’ table a few times when I thought I should have been seated with the other adults - but with a limited number of seats, I was at the bottom of the totem pole.
Well, when it comes to planning on IT expenditures, at which table are the Enterprise Architects seated? At which table are information architects seated? What about data stewards?
This analogy came to me from a friend, Tony Salazar, while speaking on the subject of rigor and certification of data modelers. Tony has this great idea of bringing levels of discipline and certification to folks involved in information architecture and data quality.
Folks from the Project Management Institute have done this for the project management disciplines, as the International Association of Software Architects' (IASA) Certified IT Architect Professional (CITA-P) program is doing with enterprise architects. (If you're a member of the IASA Global Architect group on LinkedIn, you'll see the progress being made there, and catch up on lots of great discussions.)
Of course, we have many certifications available from the Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals (ICCP) - but these start to deal with practitioner-level certifications in the data space. The Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) that DAMA helped define is great if you are a DBA or data manager or data warehouse specialist.
But where are the certification programs that teach "business acumen" to architects? Through their considerable membership, the PMI organization has done a great job of promoting the critical nature of professional project managers to the success of a project, and these other certifications help educate folks who want to specialize in a technical field.
But what certifies us to speak with authority on topics of data quality management and enterprise information management? There may be a few, but we need help to earn an invitation to the meetings where powerful business leaders make decisions on project funding and priorities.
To get back to the analogy, the way we communicate and act keeps us from the negotiator's table. We often act as if we believe in these lofty ideals - like "every piece of data matters!" or "every piece of data deserves to be treated with dignity and respect!" (tongue firmly in cheek).
Or worse, we talk about metadata and definitions etc. (ok, a continuation from my last blog on Nerd Appeal - sorry) but leave out the "WIIFM" factor.
I think that, in order to get invited to the "adult table," we need to start "acting like adults." That doesn't mean we can't giggle amongst ourselves at the default optimization plan that vendor X's product generated, or we can cry over a beer at the data entropy threatening to take over the universe.
But in public, when around "adults" we must conduct ourselves in a manner that show them that we grok the issues that keep them awake at night. And we must, when asked, know how to answer a question in business-speak instead of geek-speak!
When asked your opinion, why not answer with a statement about the rate of customer abandonment, supply chain inefficiencies, the revenue benefits of increased customer satisfaction etc.? Even if you do not know the answers, answer their question with another question that makes them think about the costs, risks, issues, threats etc. that are due to poor data quality.
Or if you have them listening, plant a seed about how better data on your customers, your install base, your process or whatever matters to them will lead to more profitability, or seizing opportunities.
You can do this.
It just takes practice. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a certification program that helped move us from the kid's table to the adult's table?
4 Responses »
Leave a Response
Entries(RSS)
Another great post Marty,
It reminds me a little of the Not So Strange Case of Dr. Technology and Mr. Business -- a blog post that I wrote last summer about the need for effective consultants to be fluent in both geek-speak and business-speak.
I too suffered the pains of eating holiday dinners at the kids' table -- and well into my high school years because of our very large extended family.
Of course, during other times of the year, whenever I acted like a child at the dinner table with my immediate family, my parents would shake their head and say:
"And you wonder why you are still eating at the kids' table during the holidays?"
The time is long overdue for all of us geeks to start acting like the businesspeople that we truly are -- and spend a little less time mocking executives for their lack of techno-babble and science fiction knowledge (K'Plah! -- that's Klingon for "Success" by the way
).
Best Regards,
Jim
Thanks Jim -
Your response is a hoot, as is your referenced earlier blog post on Dr. Technology and Mr. Business - Great piece!!!
I think we're making progress.
Q for you: do you think business-speak is something geeks should be required to learn? or, better yet, do you think it should be required for geeks to learn conversational business-speak? We've been expecting non-technical folk to learn our language since the world is getting more technology-savvy, but don't you think we can accelerate our forward progress if we learn conversational business-speak?
Also, do you think this should be relegated to a few folks who have a penchant for languages and consulting?
Cheers!
M
)
Hi Marty,
I am not sure if he coined the term, but I agree with George Colony,the CEO of Forrester Research, who blogged in early 2008 that it's time to change the term IT (information technology) to BT (business technology).
Therefore, I definitely agree with you as well that since the world is getting more technology-savvy, we need to accelerate our forward progress by requiring everyone to at least learn conversational business-speak.
After all, learning conversational business-speak has to be easier than learning conversational Klingon. Besides, Comic-Con is only one week a year and phrases like:
jIHvaD Hov leng lut cha'bogh paqmeylIj Hoch Danobbe'chugh vaj bIHegh
Have very limited applicability anywhere else.
Best Regards,
Jim
P.S. In English, that Klingon phrase roughly translates as: "Give me all your Star Trek comics or die!"
Marty, good stuff, and this is something that does not happen overnight. What helps ? Things like this, your article. In fact, the more I read, comment, share and (most of all) practice, I have built my Business Acumen over the years, really by LISTENING and sharing.
When on a call, with a client, in an exec meeting, what are the valuable statements that matter to the business ? is it MIPS or Transactions per second, or how many large the band width or better yet, how long it will take to drop a database and restore it ...
Like Jim said, we have to speak both sides, what matters to the Adult Table attendees ? Marty, your examples like customer retention, or revenue stream, or time to market or comply with regulations, avoid risk... the list is endless, but I capture these statements, and (here is the hard part) TRANSLATE what we do in MDM / DQ / DG into business terms...
I will be the first to admit this, I am still learning... but people like you and the rest of the MDM / DQ / DG space makes it easier to learn, and reading what you all share, only helps with my Business Acumen Speak
Appreciate it... and I will continue to learn...
- Garnie