ADG 8: Messaging & Stakeholder engagement

Alex Leigh

November 10 2025

4 min read

At the start of 2025, we ran the Agile Data Governance (ADG) webinar series.  In this collection of short articles, we’re going to look back at each one to summarise the most important takeaways. It’s been fun going back after a few months to see if there’s anything we missed or even forgotten!

ADG 8 - Messaging and Stakeholder Management

Overview:

How to get buy-in from senior leadership.

Key Points:

• Communicating the value of data governance.

• Demonstrating ROI.

  
  

We don’t talk anymore: How to sell DG to different audiences.

Firstly, we make no apologies for categorising some communication activities as selling. To us and our fellow practitioners DG is both an exciting and compelling story. To others, less invested in our DG capability, not so much.

So if you want your university or organisation to make better decisions, improve services, reduce re-work and find calm amongst the data chaos, we don’t just need to make people understand, we need them to care,

Most of us are not comms professionals, but there’s some simple things you can do we’ve tested at lots of universities. Let’s dive in.

1. Know your audience.

Before you start talking about data governance, you need to identify your audience and their interest. We grouped stakeholders into three main types:

• Leaders: Senior management / executive groups who can initially sponsor and then support your work.

• Professional services: Teams who will likely benefit most from the DG capability.

• Everyone else:  Academics, researchers, funders, regulators etc. Depending on your university, you may wish to break out academic colleagues. There’s a whole other blog on the perception from that community that they are second class “data citizens” and – if that is true – what can be done about it.

  
  

We used a simple tool called the Influence-Interest Matrix to help map out who’s most important to engage first. People with high influence and high interest are your champions. Others might need more time or a different approach. And remember—this map changes over time, so keep it updated.

2. Find things they care about

Once you know who you’re talking to, the next step is getting your message aligned to their interests. We used the 3Vs of Messaging (taken from Scott Taylors excellent “Data Storytelling” book) to help us shape this communication:

• Vision: What does success look like? Help people imagine a better future in a data world they want to live in. Often this feels very close to what the university is aspiring to in its strategy; it’s just a little more detailed and should include examples of what will be different, and what that matters. This – for us – is the hardest of the Vs.

• Voice: Use a tone that fits your institution. Avoid jargon or generic language that feels out of place.  Authenticity is your friend. ChatGPT is not!

• Vocabulary: Talk about data in ways that feel relevant. If someone’s struggling with something, show how data governance can help fix it. We don’t’ want to talk about data, we want to talk about what data does and does not do.

The goal is to make data governance feel useful and accessible, not technical; “work with us and make your life easier”. And yeah, it does need a bit of selling as we said. On that note….

3. People love stories so let’s tell some.

People don’t get excited about policies (well not many people!), but they might get excited by stories which connect with their needs. One of the most powerful ways to engage others is by asking questions like: What’s frustrating you right now? What’s not working? What does good look like?

When you listen first, you can show how data governance helps solve real problems. It also dispels the myth that this is your first meeting with the “data Police”. We want to make our messages as targeted and impactful as possible, because if we take care to understand our data stakeholders need, we can build trust that what we’re delivering is worth “investing’ their time in.

This all sounds great, but often you’ll come up against senior leaders who still see data quality as only a cost, not a benefit. Our stories need to shift that conversation from “this is expensive” to “this is valuable.” One of the ways of showing that value is when running DG you learn so much about different parts of the university, you can connect them with stories that no one else has.

Universities are such disparate and diverse beasts, no one can know in detail what each part does. Bringing these parts together with stories of “doing this breaks that” or “we do this in fifteen different places” and “there’s a real opportunity to improve the lives of students here” are authentic and compelling. Use your networks and tell better stories.

The Data Governance Strapline.

Every time we work with a university, we’ll always attempt to come up with a strapline for their DG capability.  In the webinar, we had a go and pulled out our favourites for this blog:

• “Who Datas Wins”

• “Trusted Data, Better Outcomes”

• “Making Data Work for All of Us”

• Data: You Only Live Once (YOLO)”

These fun phrases remind us that data governance doesn’t have to be dry. With the right message, it can be inspiring and even a bit cool. Okay, not cool 😊

Final Thought

Data governance isn’t just about systems and spreadsheets. It’s about people, culture, and communication. When you take the time to understand your audience, speak their language, and tell stories that matter, you can turn data governance from a hard sell into a shared endeavour.

It all starts with a conversation. Have more of those.

Engaging audiences is one of the hardest things when building and scaling your DG capability. We’ve lots of experience in strategies, tactics and tools to help. If that sounds like the kind of help you need, get in touch at hello@ed-connect.ac.uk.

In our next blog we’re heading into the murky world of “data governance tooling”.   We say world, more shark infested waters!