Focus Areas for Data Governance

Focus Areas, Getting Started

All Data Governance programs are not alike. Quite the contrary: programs can use the same framework, employ the same processes, and still appear very different.

Why is this? It’s because of what the organization is trying to make decisions about or enforce rules for. An organization that is concerned with Data Privacy or Compliance is going to look at its data differently than one that is concerned about implementing a new Data Warehouse.

Focus Areas for Data Governance

In this section, we look at Data Governance programs with six common focus areas. It’s worth noting: A single framework can help organize efforts for all of these focus areas because of what all Data Governance programs have in common:

  • They all have activities that address a three-part governance mission: to create rules, resolve conflicts, and provide ongoing services.
  • They all employ most or all of the universal components of a Data Governance program.
  • They all address universal governance processes and services, such as Issue Resolution and Stakeholder Care.

Data Governance programs with different focus areas will, however, differ in the type of rules and issues they’ll address.

They’ll differ in the emphasis they give to certain data-related decisions and actions.

And, they’ll differ in the level of involvement required of types of data stakeholders.

Who is a data stakeholder? Any individual or group that could affect or be affected by the data under discussion. Some stakeholders are obvious – business groups, IT teams, Data Architects, and DBAs. Other stakeholders may not be so obvious for a given decision or situation. Knowing which stakeholder to bring to the table – and when – is the responsibility of the Data Governance team.

Read about Data Governance with a Focus On:

– Policy, Standards, Strategy

– Data Quality

– Privacy, Compliance, Security

– Architecture, Integration

– Data Warehouse, BI

– Management Alignment

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Assigning Data Ownership

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Focus Areas for Data Governance: Data Quality

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Focus Areas for Data Governance: Policy, Standards, Strategy

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Defining Data Governance

How you define your program will influence your ability to manage it — to keep all participants on focus, in sync, and striving toward the same goals.

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Focus Areas for Data Governance: Privacy, Compliance, Security

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Establishing a Data Governance Office

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Focus Areas for Data Governance: Data Warehouses and Business Intelligence (BI)

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Setting Governance Roles and Responsibilities

Who does what in a Data Governance program? First, a group of individuals (or a hierarchy of groups) representing a cross-section of stakeholder groups makes a set of rules in the form of policies, standards, requirements, guidelines, or data definitions. (Or, they...
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Funding Models: Funding Data Governance

The DGI Data Governance Framework addresses funding two ways: Obtaining funding and support is a phase in the Data Governance Life Cycle Funding is part of one of the components of the framework. What type of funding is needed? Data Governance programs need to...
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Choosing Governance Models

It’s important to define the organizational structure of your Data Governance program. But before you can do that you have to define your governance model at a higher level. You need to consider what types of decisions your governance bodies will be called upon to...
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