Understanding Data Governance

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The discipline of Data and Information Management is exploding with different theories and frameworks to help businesses better understand and control their data. From Business Intelligence to Master Data Management to Data Governance, all of these strive to provide value to a business through knowledge and action applied to data.

Data Governance is a set of policies and procedures used to define and place tight controls around data. Not just any data is put through the rigors of data governance, however. The data that is analyzed and controlled is data that has been agreed upon to be critical to the organization and important to more than just any one single line of business.

A Data Governance team is usually made of of a DG Manager, Staff, and then the DG Council. The DG manager will generally have a background in data management and should have a broad understanding of the organization and its goals. The DG staff doesn't have to have this same type of experience, but they should have analytical and business skills and be able to research a diverse set of problems and issues. The Data Governance council is generally made up of at least one representative from each line of business who can represent and help improve the quality of data across the organization.

The DG Council generally identifies and issue and places it into the capable hands of the DG staff to thoroughly research how this issue touches different places within the organization. Once the research is complete, a presentation is compiled and presented back to the council for analysis. The council then chooses how to move forward and develops a solution path. Doing this, over and over, in an iterative way can bring about drastic positive change in the quality of data within an organization.

There are many different methodologies on display now in the information management arena. Buzzwords come and go, but it seems that the ideas behind Data Governance will be around for a very long time.