Don't put a control freak in charge of information access

by Ron Allan

Data Communications

October 2006

Is your data warehouse project struggling? Are line managers and end users irritated with the technical teams? Do you hear a repeated refrain from technical staff that users just don't understand their own data — and in extreme cases their own business?

Ron Allan

Ask yourself these questions. Have you put a highly authoritarian personality in charge of your data access projects? Does he or she think it's not a good idea for anyone else to have discretionary access to information?

Data administration and data warehousing are highly collaborative endeavors. They require a "Can't we all get along," approach. A top down, hierarchical approach that discourages input from users is simply not going to work.

Hire information access people whose first instinct is to give users the data they want. Promote the person who wants to give users all available data, rather than the least that can be gotten away with.

Ron Allan is assistant to the dean for research and data services at Georgetown University. Reach him at allanr@Georgetown.edu.