Measure Impact and Progress for Collibra Adoption

Supporting adoption of Collibra — or any new technology — with measurement, means identifying and counting what really matters to the implementation stakeholders. There are different metrics that can work together to communicate expectations, value and progress. These include impact metrics and progress metrics. In order to effectively leverage these metrics, it is important to identify what matters to the implementation stakeholders and measure them to show value.

Understanding Impact Metrics

Impact metrics answer the question, “how is this improving our business?” In order to measure this metric, think about what matters most to the organization as a whole. Commonly, impact metrics relate to strategic objectives and the value case established for Collibra. Categories that these metrics can fall into include: revenue enhancement, cost containment or risk mitigation. This can help you describe the value you are bringing to the organization.

Sample impact metrics include:

• Better, more efficient decision-making
• Reduced regulatory costs associated with data governance
• Increased market shares due to more accurate analytics

Understanding Progress Metrics

Progress metrics answer the question, “are we moving toward success?” These metrics show incremental progress toward the overarching goal set for the implementation. Progress metrics can be easier to identify than impact metrics because they are visible and related to what you are doling to reach that goal. They are often things that you can watch happen or easily count.

However, because progress metrics are lagging indicators, they do not tell you if you are actually creating value, only what you are doing to create value.

Sample progress metrics include:

• For Collibra adoption
  • % of business users accessing Collibra on a weekly basis
  • # of Data Sets / Business Terms loaded over time
• For Collibra implementation
  • # of configured domains
  • Time to configure domains
• For MetaGovernance
  • # of issues escalated and resolved
  • # of approved and implemented standards, policies, and processes
  • # of data owners and stewards identified

Metrics should be shared in incremental results to engage people and demonstrate value while reinforcing expectations. This encourages people to work toward expectations. By reporting these expectations, or measures, regularly, it shows people that they are working toward a common goal and their performance makes an impact. This creates accountability and a sense that the things that get measured get done. It also allows you to identify areas for improvement and resource needs.

Creating an Adoption Dashboard

An adoption dashboard is a tool to report progress, build transparency and improve efficiency. All the metrics that matter are in one place rather than spread out. Dashboards display results from tracking important metrics in a way that is easy to understand while still being relevant and accurate.

Some common features of useful dashboards include:

• Relevant: Identify the most import metrics to report on the dashboard. Look through your identified impact and progress metrics to choose the results that will matter to the greatest number of people. This includes key impact metrics and progress toward current milestones. The progress metrics that are reported can be changed throughout implementation to reflect what is most relevant at that time.
• Accurate: Share information about the data and how it is used to build confidence in the reported data.
• User-friendly: The results displayed in the dashboard should be easy for users to understand. One way of doing this is to show results in charts and graphs rather than in data table. It can also be helpful to highlight relevant changes in performance.

Collibra Helps Measure Progress

Collibra can support measurement efforts by making some adoption metrics readily available. Each module in the Collibra environment has metrics including active users, asset count, license usage, page hits and many more. The time range of these metrics can be change to suit specific needs.

Both types of metrics work together to show meaning. Progress metrics measure activities that lead to impact metrics. Impact metrics guide which progress metrics are important. Metrics should be shared in incremental results to engage people and demonstrate value while reinforcing expectations. This encourages people to work toward expectations. By reporting these expectations, or measures, regularly, it shows people that they are working toward a common goal and their performance makes an impact. This also creates a sense of accountability and a sense that things that get measured get done. It also allows you to identify areas for improvement and resource needs.

Measure Impact and Progress is number six of our Nine Best Practices for Driving (Enterprise) Collibra Adoption. Be on the lookout for best practice number seven: Plan for and Manage Resistance.

View Becky Lyons’ Collibra Best Practices article series.