Cross-role Simulation — VeriTech Group

This is your brief only. You do not know what the Data Steward or Data Owner have been told. Do not share this document before the simulation begins.

Your role

Data Use Case Owner — Customer Operations

The situation

You manage the customer operations team at VeriTech Group Frankfurt. Over the past six months your team has received an increasing number of calls from clients asking for real-time updates on the status of their certification audits. Each call takes 8–12 minutes to handle and your team is managing around 40 of these per week.

Your use case

You have submitted a use case brief proposing a customer audit status dashboard — a live view of where each client's audit stands, accessible directly by the client through the VeriTech Group client portal. You believe the data to build this already exists in the operations system.

Your success criteria

Reduce inbound audit status calls by 60% within 3 months of launch

Dashboard live for all active clients within 6 weeks of approval

Data refreshed at least every 24 hours

What you know

You know

The volume of status calls and the cost to your team

What the dashboard needs to show from a client perspective

That operations data exists — you've seen it in internal reports

You don't know

Whether the data quality is sufficient for client-facing use

Who has approved access to this data

Whether "completed audit" means the same thing across all systems

Your opening position

You are presenting this brief to the Data Steward and Data Owner today. You need approval to proceed to the technical build phase. You are confident the business case is strong. Be prepared to answer questions and revise your brief if needed.

This is your brief only. You do not know what the Use Case Owner or Data Owner have been told. Do not share this document before the simulation begins.

Your role

Data Steward — Operations domain

The situation

You are the Data Steward for operational process data at VeriTech Group. You have been asked to review the data quality of the audit status data before the Use Case Owner's dashboard brief goes to the Data Owner for approval.

What you found

The term "completed audit" is defined differently across three systems. In the Operations CRM it means the audit report has been filed internally. In the Client Portal it means the client has received the final certificate. In the Finance system it means the invoice has been paid. A client-facing dashboard using the Operations CRM definition would show audits as "complete" up to 3 weeks before the client has actually received their certificate.

What you know

You know

The definition inconsistency across three systems

That fixing this requires a decision from the Data Owner

The correct definition to use for a client-facing context

You don't know

Whether the Use Case Owner knows about this issue

How urgently the Use Case Owner needs approval

Whether the Data Owner will prioritise fixing this

Your opening position

You need to flag the quality issue without blocking the Use Case Owner's project unnecessarily. You have a proposed resolution — use the Client Portal definition of "completed audit" across all systems — but it requires the Data Owner to approve a definition change and IT to implement it. You estimate this would take 2–3 weeks.

This is your brief only. You do not know the full details of what the Data Steward has found or the Use Case Owner's timeline pressure. Do not share this document before the simulation begins.

Your role

Data Owner — Operations domain

The situation

You are the Data Owner for operational process data. You have been asked to attend a session where the Use Case Owner is presenting a brief for a client-facing audit status dashboard. You have also received a heads-up from the Data Steward that there may be a data quality issue to discuss — but you have not yet seen the full details.

Your constraints

You have budget to approve one significant data initiative this quarter — this dashboard is a strong candidate but not the only one

Any client-facing use of data requires your explicit approval and a data quality sign-off from the Data Steward

You cannot approve a definition change without understanding the downstream impact on Finance reporting

What you know

You know

A dashboard brief is being presented today

A data quality issue has been flagged by the Steward

Client-facing data requires your sign-off

You don't know

The nature of the quality issue

How long it would take to resolve

The business cost of delaying the dashboard

Your opening position

You are supportive of the dashboard in principle. But you cannot approve client-facing data use without a clean quality sign-off. You need the Data Steward to explain the issue clearly and the Use Case Owner to demonstrate they understand the risk. Your decision today is whether to approve, approve with conditions, or defer pending resolution.

Facilitator only — not shared with participants

Session 4 facilitator guide

What makes this simulation work

Each role has information the others don't. The Use Case Owner doesn't know about the quality issue. The Data Owner doesn't know the details. The Data Steward doesn't know the timeline pressure. The simulation works because revealing this information requires the roles to actually talk to each other — not just present to the facilitator.

Run of play — 3.5 hours