Data Governance is a balancing act. On the one hand, you need to exert control over how groups create data, manage data, and use data. On the other hand, you need to promote appropriate levels of flexibility. You need to ensure that data-related efforts support the...

Remember our (long) definition for Data Governance? “Data Governance is a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and...

Everything an organization does should tie to one of three universal value drivers. Data Governance efforts MUST tie back to one or more of these drivers. And YOU must communicate how it does.

It’s essential that Data Governance and Stewardship program facilitators avoid being “caught up” in politics. It’s our jobs to acknowledge the realities of the situations we work with, while avoiding taking sides or engaging in behaviors that could be perceived as favoring one set of data stakeholders at the expense of others.

One of the tenets of Data Governance is that enterprise data doesn’t “belong” to individuals. It is an asset that belongs to the enterprise. Still, it needs to be managed…

Most organizations have string change management – or at least change control – mechanisms for technology. They usually have change management for software applications. They have change management for websites. And yet, many organizations do not practice structured...

As you perform the activities needed to gain support and funding, remember that your program may plan to address multiple focus areas. Each new effort should be introduced using the seven steps of the life cycle. Even specific governance-led projects, such as creating a set of data standards, will want to follow the Data Governance Life Cycle steps.

There is no single “right” way to organize Data Governance and Stewardship. Some organizations have distinct Data Governance programs. Others embed Data Governance activities into Data Quality or Master Data Management programs.

It seems like there are two types of Data Governance and Stewardship programs: Thriving ones, with highly-engaged stakeholders, and Ones whose futures are in question, since stakeholders and stewards are only sporadically involved or give only weak support to the...

Most organizations that begin a formal Data Governance and Stewardship effort need a support team to facilitate and coordinate activities of councils, stewards, and stakeholders. This support team may be individual contributors who have been doing this work informally...