Agents help drive the adoption of MDM
You will need help. Help with the day to day management and execution of implementation and changes. You will also need help getting engaged throughout the company. Help for finding opportunities to leverage and promote MDM against current issues or new initiatives where it can contribute to the solution. These could arrive in the form of "how might we" questions or active conversations to address a regulatory interest or upcoming corporate action such as buying another business. You may seek opportunities to speak to project management, business areas or technical groups about your intentions and engage with them as plans develop.
Seek to gain awareness of opportunities by connecting with people that have a voice in the organization and educate them about your mission. Develop these people into formal or informal advocates. Who is frequently posting on social media or those that speak thoughtfully during meetings or share ideas in detailed messages? Pay attention to the authors of relevant documents. Be cautious of the difference between those that have a lot to say vs those that people seek out for guidance or to lead an initiative. They will help you to listen for opportunities to apply or extend MDM's capabilities, which will help to support you for funding.
Data analysts, systems experts, solution architects, enterprise architects are all candidates. These are the people that tend to get pulled into the company's initiatives or called when one is not progressing.
How I do it:
Schedule time to review what you are working on in a one on one session. There are likely not many of these people, and the time is a good investment.
Talk through what you're looking to do, ask them to consider the goals, take a couple of days if it is needed.
If their feedback and interest are meaningful to you, ask if they would be willing to be part of your council, this can be informal to start with as a means to discuss ideas.
Regularly send them materials for comment and setup time to review their thoughts and your progress. This engagement will give you broader insight as well as help each other to be accountable for progress.
As you work with your council of agents, continue to be conscious of the people that are influencing your goals. Your goals should be able to map to a business need and the name of the person that will benefit from the capability.