The work-from-anywhere age demands you up your data governance game to full 3D complexity

Just as a challenging, data-driven economy has remade the dynamics of the business chessboard, work-from-anywhere policies further make the game more akin to the 3D chess famously played on Star Trek.

In today’s data-driven world, the business landscape resembles a dynamic chessboard, where each piece takes on new purpose: pawns play indispensable roles, bishops can move straight, rooks now maneuver diagonally, and your knights, queen, and king must move in synchronized harmony.?

As I’ve recently written, it’s a disruptive paradigm shift . Soaring volumes of data and growing awareness of the inestimable value of information have triggered a reactive mood in many boardrooms. It’s hardly improved by captains and commanders who bark top-down orders to IT and data teams, demanding they make order from the seeming chaos.?

This won’t work on the new game board. Data engineers and analysts are exhausted , it’s bad business practice, and failure to change will only dampen ROI and weigh on the bottom line. This is why I argue that Agile Data Governance – the tools we’ve built and the and philosophy we’ve embraced at data.world – are critical to invert outdated business logic: “If you try to build a data-driven culture with a top-down approach where every detail is planned far in advance, you will fail,” as my co-founder Jon Loyens puts it .

Yet monolithic IT systems and centralized databases, and the mindsets they’ve created, are even more of a drag on business in the new geography of work and collaboration. Remote work makes these agile technologies more essential than ever.

A page for data governance out of Captain Kirk’s playbook

This challenge is now more akin to three-dimensional chess, much like the version made famous by Captain Kirk and Spock in Star Trek. In this work-from-anywhere (WFA) environment, data governance transforms into a multidimensional challenge.?

Traditional boundaries are fast blurring. As teams work across time zones, state tax authorities face off over who should pay what and where , and human resource leaders get creative about holiday parties in cyberspace, something else is happening: Data flows across devices, locations, cloud services, and often international borders. The diversity of devices and networks amplifies the need for sophisticated governance policies that can manage data flow and ensure safety and compliance within a constantly shifting landscape.

Yes, full-time return-to-the-office mandates are grabbing headlines and no one knows where the spinning dial between WFA, hybrid, or “on-prem” will land. But since the pandemic taught the world to Zoom – and certainly helped save the global economy as a result – this new mode of distributed workforces is here to stay.?

Roughly a quarter of the U.S. workforce now works remotel y at least part of the time, some 35 million people. Not only that, at least 95% percent of employees seek some sort of work-from-home accommodation, according to one study by FlexJobs , an employment agency specializing in remote work.?

“Even the most reluctant hybrid employers have now mostly accepted that some degree of remote work is here to stay, especially if you have to compete for any sort of skilled or scarce employees,” Alexandra Samuel, co-author of “Remote, Inc. – How to Thrive at Work … Wherever You Are ” told the New York Post.

At data.world , for example, we’re currently almost all-remote across more than 20 states except for a small office in Austin for the convenience of those who prefer it.

The many ways the game can end in checkmate?

Back on the specifics of governing, utilizing, and optimizing your data resources in the post-geography economy, here are four ways that WFA mirrors three-dimensional chess complexity:

Increased Risk and Compliance Needs: Data in a WFA model moves across jurisdictions, each with its own regulatory requirements. Like three-dimensional chess, where each level demands distinct and multiple strategies, data governance must adapt to handle multiple regulatory layers, and executives must manage risk in different contexts simultaneously.

Dynamic Data Access and Security: In a WFA model, people access data from various devices, locations, and networks, each with distinct security profiles. So-called ”zoom bombing” attacks have proliferated, enabling database hacks via Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, and other channels. This requires a more granular, agile governance model that considers factors such as device type, user location, and network security—comparable to tracking and responding to moves across multiple chess planes.

Enhanced Monitoring and Control Complexity: WFA demands real-time monitoring and predictive analytics to respond to potential security threats or policy breaches. Just as 3D chess requires players to think several moves ahead on multiple levels, data governance in WFA requires proactive control mechanisms that adapt to changes in user behavior, access patterns, and data interactions.

Coordination Across a Broader Ecosystem: In WFA, governance extends to external partners, contractors, and cloud providers. Like coordinating moves across a 3D chessboard, organizations must harmonize policies, practices, and tools across a much broader ecosystem, ensuring secure data flows across numerous touchpoints.

Our Agile Data Governance framework can make WFA work for employees while helping your business manage the 3D chessboard and its new risks and challenges. Demo our data governance platform - we would love to help you. And you can do that by remote too!