This type of program typically comes into existence in conjunction with a major system acquisition, development effort, or update that requires new levels of cross-functional decision-making and accountabilities.

Focus on Architecture

What other types of groups and initiatives might want such a program focus? Enterprise initiatives such as

  • A move to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), with its need for well-governed data
  • A new focus on Metadata
  • A Master Data Management (MDM) initiative
  • Enterprise Data Management (EDM)
  • Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
  • Standardization on platforms
  • Changes to systems due to new business focus or Merger and Acquisitions activity

A charter for this type of program may hold Data Governance and Stewardship participants accountable to:

  • Ensure consistent data definitions
  • Support architectural policies and standards
  • Support Metadata Programs, SOA, Master Data Management, Enterprise Data Management (EDM)
  • Bring cross-functional attention to integration challenges
  • Identify stakeholders, establish decision rights, clarify accountabilities

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Defining Organizational Structures

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.

Demonstrating Value

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.

Governance Communications

At a Data Governance Conference in Orlando, Florida (USA), a group of managers of successful Data Governance programs reached a startling consensus: They agreed that Data Governance is actually somewhere between 80 and 95% communications!How can this be? They said...

Focus Areas for Data Governance

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....

Governance and Decision-Making

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...

Dealing With Politics

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.

Focus Areas for Data Governance: Policy, Standards, Strategy

This type of program typically comes into existence because some group within the organization needs support from a cross-functional leadership body. For example, companies moving from silo development to enterprise systems may find their application development teams...

Working with Data Stewards

Approaches to Assigning Data Ownership and Stewardship Organizations can take multiple approaches to assigning Data Owners and Data Stewards for enterprise data. In doing so, they need to consider several factors and answer the following questions.Question #1:  Should...

Engaging Stewards and Stakeholders

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...

Governance and Issue Resolution

One of the three most important jobs of a Data Governance program is to help resolve data-related issues. These may be conflicting data definitions, data usage concerns, or problems with how data is sourced, how it is integrated, how it is protected, or a myriad of...