I kicked off a really interesting project over the last week — and it was all go! 
The organisation had recently stood up a new Data Governance Group and pulled together a great bunch of eager Data Stewards from across the business. The first big task? Go forth and gather! Each steward was sent off to find and document data-related initiatives and pain points from their part of the business to feed into a prioritisation process.
At face value, it seemed like a solid plan — bottom-up input, business engagement, and a shared governance lens.
But… when we stepped back, a few cracks started to show:
- There wasn’t a shared understanding of what counted as a “data initiative”
- Some ideas were highly tactical, others more transformational — but no framework to sort them
- And we hadn’t clearly defined what we were actually trying to achieve as a governance group
So instead of jumping straight to prioritising, we hit pause and reset. We revisited:
- The mission behind the data work (what “good” looks like)
- The core data focus areas tied to business strategy
- The distinction between tactical fixes vs strategic opportunities
- A common approach to consolidating, categorising, and prioritising the ideas
Honestly, it was such a valuable reminder that governance isn’t just about policies or checklists — it’s about creating clarity and confidence. Sometimes that means slowing down… so you can speed up later.