Data governance doesn’t start in a vacuum; it requires plenty of advance thinking, preparation, and strategy. As such, successful data governance must begin with a foundation built on data principles and a well-thought-out data strategy.
Data principles are core guidelines and beliefs that form the backbone of the data strategy and core data governance capabilities. Principles are typically focused on areas like data definition, accountability, quality, usage, security, reporting, and retention.
For example, data accountability might be defined as: ”All transactional and reference data is owned by the financial institution and its accountability must be defined. Specific data assets must be owned by named organizations and individuals responsible for that specific data asset in a specific data domain.”
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A collection of data principles then forms the core of the data strategy’s goals and objectives for how data is to be managed across the organization. The data strategy needs to define a data governance roadmap and identify the core components and initiatives that will be required to achieve these goals. The data strategy will define the key capabilities required, and the data governance roadmap will lay out the plans and timelines for implementing these capabilities.
Certain data governance capabilities are foundational, and their implementation should be prioritized to ensure the structure is in place to support the implementation of subsequent capabilities.
First, organizational roles must be defined with clearly documented responsibilities in the context of an underlying governance structure. The accountability established will support the implementation of the other capabilities.
Authoritative sources and data lineage will inform and support data quality efforts with all three relying on standard data models and metadata principles provided through a data architecture capability. This, in turn, provides the foundation necessary for an emerging capability related to or the effective implementation and monitoring of data contracts.
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