Malcolm Chisholm of Information Management recently wrote, “Much discussion exists about the role of a data steward and what it entails, and in my experience it is quite unclear in many enterprises. A large part of this lack of clarity seems to arise from confusion with two other roles – subject matter experts and data managers. We need to understand how these three roles fit together. Either we should justify them as separate roles or recognize that they boil down to the same thing. The fact that many enterprises have only a fuzzy grasp of what these three roles involve is a major risk for the successful operationalization of data governance. This is because individuals will be assumed to have accountabilities that they have not been formally assigned, and which they are not equipped to carry out. To the extent that these accountabilities are assigned by a data governance program, it is data governance that will be blamed for lack of results.”
Chisholm continues, “Let’s begin by looking at what an SME is. This is an individual who has certain expertise in a particular domain. “Expertise” is usually broken down into knowledge and skills; either the SME knows about a particular topic or knows how to get something done. Since we are talking about data, the SME is typically someone who knows about a particular data topic in the enterprise or how to do a particular thing with data. It is important to recognize that a SME is an individual person, rather than a role. You do not become a SME by being assigned as one.”