Detailed Playbook Activities

Abstract

This chapter presents readers with the detailed activity cards and how to read them. It begins by describing the different activity levels, what they mean, and what readers will have achieved once they reach those levels. These levels are divided into capability areas, which help readers to deploy the activities in a variety of sprints and cycles. After explaining the purpose and use of the activities, the cards themselves are listed from level I to V.

Keywords

Activity cards; Capability; Data cycles; Data governance; Data playbook

Playbook Framework: Capability Orientation

Capability models are typically used to plan and measure progression toward what are known as maturity levels for specific types of capabilities. Capability maturity models emerged and became highly standardized within the software development and technology development markets. The most well-known of these, the Software Engineering Institute Capabilities Maturity Model, has long been used to evaluate not only software development capabilities but also a broad array of technical and development capabilities. Much has been made of the CMM SEI model being the standard for capability maturity but new models have emerged that differ significantly based on the need they serve.

Our approach differs from models targeting development capabilities in two ways.

• First, we start at a target level of initial achievement, leaving the preceding level (chaos, ad hoc, initial) as Level Zero. We are forward looking, not diagnostic with our progression.

• Second, we use a different maturity sequence, because we need to emphasize governance strengths and prerequisites. We must define the data we will govern and the way we will govern it before we can actually govern (control, improve, standardize) it. We are not trying to support development activities or methodologies.

We applaud the EDM Council for recognizing the need for a more data-oriented view of these capabilities; they have created the first differentiated model for data. Their data management capability maturity model is central to their overall approach and fully supports their combined mandate of governance and development.

Comparative Views of Industry Maturity Models

We’ve taken a specific approach to leveraging the thinking behind capability maturity models. We’ve done this in order to describe capabilities in a specific way as well as the stages through which people acquiring those capabilities evolve. Our approach to capabilities is to treat them as the combination of ability and capacity. The Playbook provides a way to improve and add to the abilities of key people throughout the organization so that they may manage, improve, and control data and analytics. The Playbook also provides methods for assessing, deploying, and operationalizing key aspects of data and analytics management. Getting work done using standard methods across a defined scope and obtaining key outcomes from that work would be indicative of a capability maturity level being reached. We have found that we need to adjust the capability levels that are described in the typical maturity model so that our framework is unique and specific to the domains of data and analytics. Our focus also highlights the measurement of outcomes as indicators of reaching certain levels of maturity over time, rather than simply measuring activity as a reflection of improving capabilities. Our business goals always drive our technical work, so we measure outcomes from the work to show both business impact and value as well as capability improvements. In this way, capability improvement actually reflects the aggregate of business outcomes and value produced.

We also note very carefully that capability levels are achieved at different levels of speed across an organization. In some organizations, cross-functional or enterprise functions such as finance, marketing, sales, and others excel at certain types of data stewardship and governance because of their specific needs. Organizations value the outcomes of these areas but often leverage those efforts into another line of business, enabling functions of the enterprise. Other firms or organizations choose to start with a top-down approach and establish enterprise governance functions, programs, and resources in order to proceed across the organization and improve capabilities and outcomes. Both approaches yield valuable results, and the selection of an approach is really a reflection of a business’s priorities. The key is understanding that we typically do not reach specific capability levels at the same time across the entire business and that this condition does not indicate any loss or inefficiency. Rather, it indicates real-world situations that individual lines of business and cross-functional areas face as they adopt stewardship and governance methods.

Our experience with a multitude of clients indicates the need for more specific capability levels or stages, whose names evoke a sense of responsibility and commitment. We have also come to recognize the need to start at a Level I, rather than starting with ad hoc, disorganized, or other free, formal activity levels. Level I requires some consistent degree of methods and activities and conveys the sense that, once you start this journey, you should be committed to formal outcomes and improvements.

Additionally, it’s important that the name of the phase or level reflects the conditions of the data, analytics, and activities at the end of that level. For example, when we describe a capability level as “defined” then we’re suggesting that, for the scope of data, people, and business areas for any particular effort, that the data or analytics are defined. We’ve also found that, in adopting the mindset that John Zachman established in his framework for enterprise architecture, there are many slices and iterations of work that occur throughout an organization to progress through these capability levels. The discipline that John Zachman provides us is extremely important in this area and encourages an understanding of how to work through many levels of detail, associating our work based on crime, or foundational elements.

Now let’s look at the specific capability levels to understand why we named them as we have and what is expected as each level is achieved in any given part of an enterprise.

Playbook Framework: Capabilities

We’ve covered the capability-level progression and described what is accomplished and expected as you achieve each level. Now we move on to understanding the capability areas that describe the skills, type of work, and specific activities of the Playbook framework. Capabilities are often treated as workstreams when planning specific projects, sprints, or waves of deployment for the Playbook. It is critical to respect interdependencies across these capability areas when planning the work and assembling the resources in your program. Each of these capabilities is described below and has specific activities associated with it in the Playbook.

Note that there are only four capability areas covered in detail in this book. We have defined and deployed a total of 10 capability areas for clients across industries, including financial services, healthcare, and federal government agencies. The scope and length of this book is intended to focus on core capability areas, on which all other capabilities rely or are built.

The Playbook construct has been used by a variety of practitioners and analysts to describe a dizzying array of activities, technologies, and methods with very little empirical structure or discipline. Our approaches have taken over a decade to build, validate, deploy, and refine to a point where we could publish them for broad consumption. Part of that discipline and experience includes addressing various aspects of Playbook application and relevance to data and analytics. In our focus and discipline world, we see three overall phases of activity that organizations must engage in and complete successfully in order to assert sustainable control over their critical data and analytic assets.

Much has been made of offensive and defensive Playbook strategies that roughly align with the notion of control, the defensive mode, and improvement, the offensive mode. Control over data and analytics is increasingly associated with the three-lines-of-defense model, prevalent in the financial services industry and emerging in the healthcare and digital healthcare marketplace. Improvement is associated with enterprise performance progressions that result from higher-order data and analytic quality.

Consolidation and integration of critical, shared enterprise assets is increasingly important as we continue to expand the universe of data and analytics generated by our business, not all of which fits neatly into the “Big Data” bucket. Even the maturing cloud-computing and storage market cannot completely alleviate the continuously growing cost curve for the high-volume, high-velocity data that includes enterprise performance information and analytics.

These three high-level phases associated with the five capability levels, known as Govern, Improve, and Consolidate, are often helpful in explaining to executive teams and other high-level sponsors what we are trying to accomplish and why our focus is on these areas.

This graphic illustrates the way different parts of an enterprise may progress through the first capability level using projects, sprints, or waves of deployment for one or more capability. Capability areas describe the type of work, outcomes, and skills associated with specific domains of data and analytic management. Work often progresses in ways that require multiple capabilities to be addressed at the same time.

This example shows that work is proceeding into key capability areas; the first is data and analytics stewardship, and the second is risk and quality management. These two capability areas, or perhaps you might think of them as workstreams, are highly interactive and interdependent. It therefore makes sense to structure the Playbook so that deployment activities that combine these capabilities and target Level I outcomes are defined.

The graphic on next page illustrates the number of activities we have defined in each capability level. This view is meant to help us explain both the relative level of effort associated with establishing the foundational capability levels and the embedded notion of recursiveness for many of these activities. Each number in the columns below represents a specific activity within which are activity steps and other information. Completing these activities in any capability level for a given scope of data, analytics or business area, would constitute completion of that capability level for the relevant scope. Many of these activities represent ongoing commitments and so will be iterated over time. The reduced number of activities in the final capability levels is somewhat deceiving since they cannot be accomplished unless the previous capability levels are first achieved.

Playbook Framework: Activities

The core of the data and analytic Playbook is a set of carefully crafted and proven activities with detailed activity steps and other information that supports multiple roles across the organization as they are executed on each capability area and level of the framework. This is a subset of all defined activities in our master Playbook and represents approximately 10% of the total we have defined and deployed to date. The activities we have included in this book form the core foundation for all ongoing work. This graphic helps us identify the components of an activity so that you can become familiar with the layout and identify the pieces of information you need to use this activity rapidly.

Playbook Framework

The graphic on next page depicts the overall framework, with capability levels across from left to right, and a discrete set of defined activities within each capability. This together comprises the core of the activity areas and their progression through the capability levels. This framework functions as a table of contents for the 50+ pages of detailed activities that follow. The activities are organized by capability level and each new level is prefaced with a table of contents specific to that level. Note that these activities are provided without regard to a specific deployment sequence or strategy. Deployment planning will be addressed in a subsequent chapter and will allow for specialized sequences of activities based on your needs and assessed conditions.