Data Governance: More Than A Control Practice
Data governance is often seen as a “necessary evil” to be implemented because of compliance or regulatory requirements but data governance is more than a data control practice. It’s about data as an asset, data as the lifeblood of knowledge workers and data as part of an organization’s culture.
When data governance is done right, it becomes the strategic lynchpin that enables data-driven decision making. It’s not enough to simply mandate that data be “clean” and accessible; knowledge workers also need a clear process to find and use the data they need. The days of data being locked away in some corner of an organization are over. Data must be open and easily consumed if businesses want to compete in the digital age.
Why Data Governance Is Important
Data is a critical asset for businesses in the digital age. Organizations need to be able to trust their data in order to make sound decisions based on fact rather than intuition or guesswork. Data governance helps ensure that data is reliable and trustworthy by establishing standards and procedures for collecting, managing, and using it.
How Data Governance Works
There are typically three stages of data governance: planning, execution, and monitoring. In the planning stage, the organization defines its data governance strategy and sets up the necessary infrastructure. In the execution stage, the organization puts that plan into action by collecting and managing data according to established standards. And in the monitoring stage, the organization continually evaluates and adjusts its data governance strategy based on feedback from users and stakeholders.
The Benefits of Data Governance
Data governance can help organizations achieve a number of benefits, including:
- Improved decision making: When data is reliable and trustworthy, it enables businesses to make better decisions based on fact rather than intuition or guesswork.
- Greater efficiency: By establishing standards for collecting and managing data, data governance helps ensure that information is and easy to find. This leads to increased productivity and improved efficiency.
- Improved compliance: Data governance can help organizations achieve greater transparency and accountability, which improves an organization’s compliance with regulations and other requirements.
- More effective risk management: By establishing standards for collecting and managing data, data governance helps reduce the risk of lost records or erroneous transactions that could lead to fines or lawsuits. And by making it easier to find information when needed, it reduces the time and costs associated with resolving disputes around access requests.
- Innovation by breaking silos: Silos are the bane of knowledge workers. They prevent people from working together effectively, stifle creativity, and lead to duplication of effort. Data governance can help break down these silos by making it easier for people to find and use the data they need.
The Challenges of Implementing Effective Data Governance
There are a number of barriers that stand in the way of successfully implementing data governance including lack of buy-in from senior leadership; IT infrastructure issues such as security concerns about sharing sensitive personal information; cost issues such as determining how to fund data governance initiatives; and resistance from Knowledge Workers who feel that their work will be made more difficult by data governance procedures.
Overcoming these challenges can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Senior leadership must be on board with the need for data governance and be willing to provide the necessary resources. IT staff must be able to address security concerns and develop systems that make it easy for knowledge workers to find and use the data they need. And cost issues can often be resolved by developing a business case for data governance that demonstrates its benefits in terms of improved decision making, efficiency, compliance, and risk management.
What Data Governance Is Not
Data governance isn’t about micromanaging data or imposing rigid controls on information workers. It’s about empowering them with the insights they need to make better decisions faster. And that requires a culture of data-driven decision making, supported by sound data governance practices. Only then can your organization reap the benefits of data-driven decision making.
Data governance also isn’t about creating a single central data repository. While it’s important to have a central location where key data can be found, data governance is really about establishing standards for collecting and managing data so that it’s easy to find and use no matter where it resides.
Data governance is more than just a control practice — it’s a way of life in an organization that is committed to making decisions based on sound information. By overcoming the challenges of implementing effective data governance, your organization can reap the benefits of better decision making, increased efficiency, improved compliance, and reduced risk. And that’s good news for everyone involved.
The Bottom Line
Data governance is a critical component of doing business in the digital age. By establishing standards and procedures for collecting, managing, and using data, organizations can improve decision making, efficiency, compliance, risk management, and innovation.
So there you have it: data governance is more than just a control practice — it’s an essential element of doing business in the digital age.
