Corporate Membership in Practice
I sought to get corporate membership of DAMA for my Data Governance team as I see it as a valuable resource to support with personal development and upskilling of individuals within the team. In my case the majority of the team are not permanent employees. As such, they fall outside our HR processes in respect of career development provision and I cannot always secure funding for contingent workers to enrol on externally provided training courses and spaces on internal offerings are usually limited and prioritised for permanent staff. But, with my Bronze membership package, I can provide access to DAMA’s extensive resources to everyone in my team for only £14 per person, per year – which is a nice low number and easy to get financial approval for. At that price it’s cheaper than most team events! |
Mary Drabble, Principal Data Governance Analyst at ABRDN, shares her experience of corporate membership. |
Speaking of which, the DAMA regional networking events are very popular with the team. Data management is a specialist field and the team (and myself) use these occasions (which are frequently open to non-members also) to connect with colleagues past and present, to show case what our company does and to informally bench mark our initiative against others. Obviously, the social aspect of these meet-ups plays a role too.
Through our corporate membership my team have access to the back catalogue of DAMA’s extensive members only webinar series and are able to sign up for the privately run sessions for things like developing presentation skills. They are also able to join the mentoring program – as both a mentor or a mentee, to give or receive 1:2:1 coaching, which appeals to people for whom data governance is a new role and also those with many years of experience looking to help others develop in their careers. The mentoring program is confidential so, even as the administrator, I don’t know who has signed up – which allows people within the team to address any needs privately. Hopefully they’re not seeking guidance with respect to working for me. But, on a serious note, if they did have concerns about any aspects of the approach to implementation of Data Governance here I’d much rather they have that outlet for discussion rather than, say, just resigning.
As the definitive reference guide for Data Management, our implementation of a Data Governance Framework is based on the DMBOK so in terms of professional memberships it makes perfect sense to associate ourselves with DAMA. None of my team have, at the present time, signed up for the CDMP certification, but I would support them in doing that.
And a note to anyone thinking of taking up corporate membership – you can trust DAMA with your data. I have NOT been added to multiple mailing lists and pursued by software vendors trying to sell me stuff, which is a personal bug bear of mine! Members manage their own subscription to the DAMA notifications for upcoming events and the newsletter.
Interested in signing up? |
.png){kind=logo}
