By Sebastian Kaus
Published on 2021ĺš´12ć2ćĽ
By Sebastian Kaus, Data Governance Lead, Vattenfall
5-minute read
Sebastian Kaus is an engineer and Data Governance Lead at Vattenfall, a leading European energy company. He helps people work more efficiently by bridging the gap between conventional engineering disciplines and innovative data-driven approaches. In this blog, Sebastian shares how Vattenfall uses Alation to promote data culture as they evolve into a data-driven organization.
At Vattenfall, our vision is to achieve âfossil-free living within one generation.â In fact, Vattenfall uses hydrogen to operate our power plants more efficiently, sustainably, and profitably. These are complex processes that weâre focused on continuously improving. This requires optimizing asset management and scheduling maintenance in a smarter way. For that, we need trusted data.
The need for trusted data extends to all areas of the business. Not only are we decarbonizing the production of electricity â weâre also working with partners in other industries, such as steel production. For example, weâve developed a process where we use hydrogen instead of coal to create steel. Creating this product requires exchanging information with our partners, who need to trust the data from Vattenfall.
Here are key strategies to establish a data-driven culture within your organization:
How does a company become data driven? Would it surprise you if I said itâs about building a data culture? Itâs easy to deploy BI models and databases and so on. But if you donât have a data culture in place, youâre going to have issues.
I use the analogy of Health and Safety initiatives. Power plants can be dangerous, and these initiatives keep workers safe by enforcing safety-first behavior. Today these initiatives are so much a part of most company cultures that a technician on a production site wonât hesitate to tell the CEO to put on a safety helmet.
But now imagine if that same technician goes to the site to fix a piece of equipment, like a cracked boiler. If he doesnât have the right information about the problem, he might bring the wrong tools and the wrong spare parts. He might attempt to fix the wrong problem, and in so doing, set the stage for catastrophe. In this sense, incomplete data can be just as dangerous as not wearing a safety helmet. It ultimately affects safety, production, and the companyâs profitability because the asset remains offline.
If you want people to understand why becoming data-driven is so important, start with the business problems behind the data. Ask leaders:
Whatâs important to the business?
Can we mitigate risk by better understanding data?
How can we use data to increase profits?
Convert the data problems into business problems; donât make it just about the data, using fancy buzz words. Itâs tempting, but at the end of the day youâre running a business. Describe what youâre doing with data in terms of that business, and people will understand the need because they understand the business.
In the case of Vattenfall, we had several siloed departments, all working with data, some of it even overlapping. Although their work also often overlapped, people werenât collaborating around the information. If they donât talk to each other, they wonât trust each other.
To build trust and communication, we began with a business problem that affects all departments: How can we improve the lifespan of the assets that create electricity for our fossil-free steel production?
The solution was to implement predictive maintenance, which would require the departments to work together and to share data among themselves. First, we documented the entire proposed process, especially the data behind it. Then we needed to break down the silos and connect the dots between departments, while providing context and transparency about the information we were working with.
For that, we implemented the Alation Data Catalog. It helps us to collect the information and share it with the people who need it. Itâs user friendly and requires virtually no training. We use the catalog a bit like Google, adding simple search terms so people can find what theyâre looking for.
Our vision is to create a community around our data where people simply reach out to each other and share information. Weâre creating a culture where people know and trust the data they are working with.
While we were documenting the data, we also identified the people who knew the most about that data. From there, it was straightforward to assign those people as data stewards. Theyâre already responsible and accountable for the data, so information stewardship within the data catalog came quite naturally. And because they already feel accountable, theyâre quite willing to help when we ask them how we can do things better.
Let me be clear: This is not a fancy âdata projectâ that weâre running. Weâre embedding a data culture around information governance. Collaboration around well-governed data is becoming more and more part of our organizational DNA, our culture. We basically sneak it into the normal way of working.
Once youâve implemented data governance by assigning data stewards, you need to continue to reinforce your growing data culture. You might implement a data governance council or similar group. But the best people to spread the word about adopting the data catalog are the influencers in your company. Those are the people who are actively using the catalog to solve their own business problems. They can help build and strengthen your data culture.
At Vattenfall, these folks are our best ambassadors. When they talk about how Alation helped them to solve issues, such as finding information more easily, others learn best practices for data culture, too. Itâs basically an avalanche effect as word spreads and use of the data catalog snowballs.Â
One thing Iâve learned: You canât just push the data catalog on people. Force doesnât work. If you try and force it, you will end up with bad quality data and no community.
Today, our reporting and analysis processes are a lot more rational because we closed that trust gap between departmental silos. This enables us to progress and become more and more data driven. Weâre documenting what weâre doing and working together instead of in siloes. And there are clear roles and responsibilities because of our data governance through the Alation catalog. All of this is underpinned by our data culture, which is where we started our journey.
And our success is good for the planet. As we strive to end human dependence on fossil fuels, we know data is a powerful ally in this journey. And with Alation, we empower our entire team with trusted data for a brighter tomorrow.
Loading...