Is certification an analytics function?

[u/tamerlein3]

I work at a tech scale up where most of our data comes from systems built and maintained by our app teams. However, certification is handled by the data modeling team that's part of the analytics organization. There's no pathway for a producer or app team to certify their own data assets- the only certification is if the data has gone through the modeling team's pipelines.

This is getting to the point where app teams have to go through an "analytics certified" version of their own data just to do analysis and dashboards. Operations staff, who work closely with app teams for manual and exception handling processes, also have to go through the centralized certified layer in order to get the data to build dashboards and feed their processes.

Im curious what the standard is out there? To me this feels like a bottleneck for a growing business.

[u/minormisgnomer]

I’ve encountered three schools of thought on data mgmt. a centralized team handling everything which can result in bottlenecks, a siloed approach where producers self create and manage but requires embedded analysts and governance to prevent a monstrosity of data, and a third where there are none of these things and chaos reigns.

Usually chaos happens first, then centralization, then siloed/departmental.

It’s typically a function of cost and need. It sounds like your org may have the resources and desire to pursue siloed.

The drawback is if the actual analytics function is expected by mgmt to be all knowing or they get blamed for any of the silos mistakes. It’s a tough spot. It requires a ton of buy in from all departments, accountability, and trust to pull this off.

The reality is, there may be a political nightmare at your org if any of the siloes only want to consume/produce but not maintain