Nasdaq knew instinctively they had problems, but instinct doesn't build investment cases. An internal survey revealed 80% of users spent five-plus hours weekly just discovering assets — high-value resources digging through data to start their jobs. By measuring three metrics (time to insight, time to resolution, and adoption), they built the foundation for governance that now resolves issues 75% faster.
Key takeaways:
Three key metrics prove governance ROI: time to insight (discovery speed), time to resolution (fixing breakages), and user adoption rates
Internal surveys quantify pain — 80% of Nasdaq users spent 5+ hours weekly just trying to find available data assets
Time equals money when high-value resources spend most of their week searching instead of analyzing
Resolution time dropped from 8-10 hours to 2-3 hours by surfacing issues proactively and understanding blast radius
Adoption matters more than features — the best tools fail if end users can't or won't use them
