Data contracts cannot assign ownership

I was giving a talk a few weeks ago on data contracts, and through it one audience member seemed particularly engaged, nodding along throughout.

At the end, they asked a question:

I have this dataset that two teams want to own. How can data contracts assign that ownership?

The answer I gave is that data contracts cannot assign the ownership, they can only document and codify that ownership once it’s been agreed.

Agreeing that ownership is a people and/or process problem.

That didn’t seem totally satisfying to the audience member, and after a bit of back and forth we had to move on.

This has stuck with me for a few weeks because I would love to have said “data contracts says team A should be the owner”. But they can’t.

Only people can make that decision.

Once you’ve made that decision, you record it, in a data contract.