Technically Speaking

What Is Data
Governance?
Emily Washington Apr. 26, 19
Data governance is a wide reaching topic, so it can be
hard to know exactly what it means. We try to tackle
that problem in this post.
The term data governance has been around for decades, but only in the
last few years have we begun to redefine our understanding of what
the term means outside the world of regulatory compliance, and to
establish data standards. This rapid evolution of data governance can
be attributed to businesses looking to leverage massive amounts of
data for analytics across the enterprise, while attempting to navigate
the increasingly rugged terrain of worldwide regulatory requirements.
Data governance is a critical data management mechanism. Most
businesses today have a data governance program in place. However,
according to a recent Gartner survey, “more than 87 percent of
organizations are classified as having low business intelligence (BI)
and analytics maturity,” highlighting how organizations struggle to
develop governance strategies that do more than ensure regulatory
compliance.
Instead, businesses require a sustainable, scalable, and enterprise-wide
data governance approach to overcome immediate data compliance
obstacles and advance their long-term analytical goals.

Data Governance Is About More Than

Compliance Mandates
Data governance has always held different definitions depending on
the industry, organization, executive leadership, and operational focus.
For many years, data governance was relegated solely to the IT
department, and dedicated to compliance and data security efforts. It
had little or no impact on driving business intelligence or enhancing
operational processes. But as the volume, value, and role of data has
expanded in business, so too has the purpose and definition of data
governance.
Today, it is critical that business users across the enterprise
understand their organization’s data assets, including lineage, quality,
function, and ownership. Each asset is a potential driver of business
insights and competitive advantage. Just as important is a unified
definition of data governance so that every stakeholder across the
organization understands their data management roles and
responsibilities.
A clear and concise explanation of data governance today is the formal
orchestration of people, processes, and technology to enable an
organization to leverage data as an enterprise asset.

Breaking Down Data Governance

To create an environment of data understanding and assure that data
remains an asset, data governance begins by ensuring data knowledge
across an enterprise, increasing communication, encouraging
collaboration, and reinforcing accountability. In addition, as the sheer
volume of data grows, so do the opportunities to leverage data as an
asset, but only if users understand what assets are available, where to
find them, and who to ask when questions arise. If users don’t
understand data’s origin and lineage, they won’t trust it. Therefore,
they won’t leverage it for analytics. A business glossary, data
dictionary, and data lineage create a foundation of data governance by
providing:
 Business Glossary: Defines data, terms and business attributes.
 Data Dictionary: Provides data sources, usage, relationships and
dependencies.
  Data Lineage: Tracks data origin, usage, and flow within systems
and processes.
Data governance increases the effective usage of data, but more
importantly, provides a clear understanding of valuable data assets.
Business users are far more likely to use trusted and understood data,
and if resources for fielding questions and clarifying confusion are
easily accessible and readily available. Enterprise collaboration and
transparency are also key to building that trust. Data consumers can
rate the quality and usability of data assets they’ve interacted with,
engendering trust and encouraging utilization among other users. In
addition, data assets are leveraged more appropriately because greater
user understanding assures the right data will be chosen for the right
analysis.
Data governance also solves a long-standing challenge shared by many
businesses, the preservation of institutional knowledge. Often, policies,
processes, procedures, and other information are stored in human
memory rather than enterprise repositories. As a result, organizations
may lose critical information due to employee attrition. But with data
governance, businesses catalog and collaborate with information, thus
ensuring that institutional knowledge is captured and curated.
As with many business initiatives, data governance is often driven by
an organizational obstacle or challenge. A regulatory fine is imposed, a
new process fails, or a new regulation is passed and suddenly a new
data governance initiative is on the table. However, data governance is
not a single project. It is an ongoing program.

Data Governance Never Ends

Data governance requires a proactive approach. It shouldn’t be a
reactionary measure because a data quality challenge emerges or a
regulatory fine is given. Instead, implementing data governance
requires building out a centralized, enterprise strategy with distributed
accountability throughout the organization to avoid data challenges
before they arise.
Understanding is the foundation of data governance, and knowledge
begins with enterprise-wide transparency. Clarity into an
organization’s data landscape depends on a centralized catalog of
information, ideally bolstered by automated workflows, to streamline
ongoing communication.
With information cataloged, data is defined across the entire
organization, data owners and stewards can focus on operationalizing
governance, and business users have a single interface in which they
can quickly and easily access the information they need. All
stakeholders will benefit from an ongoing, centralized approach to data
governance to keep data up-to-date, accurate, and reliable.
Data is of no value if it isn’t understood and isn’t continuously refined.
Centralized data governance accomplishes both, promoting
accountability and collaboration to build a business that can rely on
high-quality data assets, as well as data stewards and owners who
support business users. The results are valuable business insights and
smarter operational and analytical decisions.

6 Dos and Don'ts of

Data Governance - Part
1
David Talaga Mar 05, 19

DATA GOVERNANCE IS NOT A DEPARTMENTAL INITIATIVE, IT IS A

COMPANY-WIDE INITIATIVE. SO, YOU WILL NEED TO PROVE ITS
VALUE FROM THE START.

Set Clear Expectations From the Start

One big mistake I see organizations make when starting out on
their data governance journey is forgetting the rationale behind data.
So don't just govern to govern. Whether you need to minimize risks or
maximize your benefits, link your data governance projects to clear and
measurable outcomes. As data governance is not a departmental
initiative, but rather a company-wide initiative, you will need to prove
its value from the start to convince leaders to prioritize and allocate
some resources.

What Is Your "Emerald City"? Define Your

Meaning of Success
In the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the "Emerald City" is Dorothy's
ultimate destination, the end of the famous yellow brick road. In your
data governance project, success can take different forms: reinforcing
data control, mitigating risks or data breaches, reducing time spent by
business teams, monetizing your data or producing new value from
your data pipelines. Meeting compliance standards to avoid penalties is
crucial to be considered. Ensure you know where you are headed and
where the destination is.

Secure Your Funding

As you're building the fundamentals of your projects and you're
defining your criteria for success, you will explain the why, the what,
and the how. However, make sure you don't forget to ask "how much"
to identify associated costs and the necessary resources to be
successful. If you're a newly assigned Data Protection Officer (DPO),
make sure you have a minimum secured operating fund.
If you're a Chief Data Officer (CDO), align with the Chief Technology
Officer (CTO) to secure your funding together. Then pitch your
proposal to the finance team together so that they understand the
company risks linked to failed compliance by explaining the value of
your data strategy and all the hidden potential behind data. Make sure
you present them with the perspective of data as a financial asset.

Don't Go in Alone
As you know, and it cannot be said often enough, a data journey is not
another single and IT-specific project. Even if you can go fast
apprehending tools and take advantage of powerful apps, delivering
trusted data is a team sport. Gather your colleagues from various
departments and start a discussion group around the data challenges
they're facing. Try to identify what kind of issues they have.
Frequent complaints are:

 "I can't find the data I am looking for."

 "I cannot access datasets easily."
 "Salesforce data is polluted."
 "How can I make sure it's trusted?"
 "We spent too much time removing duplicates manually."

You will soon discover that one of the biggest challenges is to build a
data value chain that various profiles can leverage to get trusted data
into the data pipelines. Work with peers to clarify, document, and see
together how to remove these pains. Bring people along on your data
journey and give them responsibilities so the project won't be your
project but rather a team project. Show that the success will not just be
for you, but for all team members to enjoy together.

Apply Governance With a "Yes!"

Avoid too much control with a top-down approach. On the contrary,
apply the collaborative and controlled model of data governance to
enable controlled role-based applications that will allow your data
stakeholders and the entire stakeholder's community to harness the
power of data with governance put in place from the get-go.
Make sure that the business understands the benefits, but also that
they are ready to participate in the effort of delivering trusted data at
the speed of the business.

Start With Your Data

Traditional governance strategies often apply a non-negotiable top-
down approach to assign accountabilities into data. While you should
spend time getting directions on your Data Governance, the truth is it
won't be highly efficient as you'll often confront high levels of
resistance. Start with your data and, more importantly, with the people
using it. Listen to business experts and collaborators, get into your data
sets to detect business value and potential business risks, then identify
who is using the data set the most, as they will often be the ones who
will be the most inclined to protect and maintain a high level of
integrity into your data sets.