Understanding Data Governance and Its Role in Your Business

Understanding
Data Governance
and Its Role in Your Business
Datamation
IT Management eBook
Contents
Understanding Data Governance
This content was adapted from the Baseline and Database Journal websites. Contributors: Jill
Dych and Keesa Bond.
A Data Governance Primer
The Silent Problem of Data
Data Governance: Learning Data Lessons

A Data Governance Primer

By Jill Dych
tandard industry intelligence says that

corporate data volumes double every
18 months, but mobile and online data
are growing at an even faster clip. From
corporate cost containment, regulatory compliance,
strategic voice of the customer initiatives and beyond,
the need for businesses to manage proliferating data has
never been more urgent.
Unaware that this work has already been performed for

other projects, well-meaning developers roll up their
sleeves and integrate the data yet again. The expense of
this duplication is buried, but it can cost a large company
millions of dollars in excess labor hours.
Increasingly, data governance is coming to the attention
Enter data governance. The term

has become as buzz-worthy with
businesspeople as it is with their
IT colleagues. Nevertheless, both
sides continue to struggle with how
to define data governance and how
to formalize it as a sustainable set
of practices.
The term governance has
bounced from the political world
to corporate boardrooms, landing
squarely in the laps of IT executives,
who have been busy formalizing
their IT governance initiatives.
Despite the term entering the
lexicon, there is still some confusion
about what data governance actually means, what work is
involved with it and who should own it.
IT organizations have begun to recognize the need
to define terminology and business rules around data
that is increasingly shared across business processes
and organizations. As part of efforts to rein in costs,
CIOs are starting to understand the enormous and
often-replicated efforts involved in finding, gathering,
annotating, consolidating and deploying data to support
a growing project portfolio.
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of businesspeople, many of whom have begun to

develop workarounds due to the lack of available data
thats meaningful, integrated and easily accessible. Its a
phenomenon thats become rampant across industries,
resulting in enormous costs.
Ive developed my own database to protect myself from
other peoples databases, one health care provider says
wryly. I cant trust other peoples interpretation of data
about my patients. If I have to stay late and maintain my
own Access database, thats what I have to do.
Understanding Data Governance and Its Role in Your Business a Datamation IT Management eBook. 2013 QuinStreet, Inc.

Multiply this clinicians efforts by the number of clinicians
in the hospital network, and youll get an idea of the
costsand the risksinvolved.
was an asset, that data quality was poor and that

someone needed to clean it up. The natural next step
was to convene a data governance council, the de facto
decision-making body for data governance.
What Is Data Governance?

Then things got really quiet.
Part of the general wariness about data governance is
due to the lack of a clear definition.
In health care, theres a special urgency around
information, says Mike Nauman, corporate director
and CIO at the Childrens Hospital and Health System
of Wisconsin. This is amplified in academic health care
organizations that operate at the forefront of medicine.
Nauman and his team recognized that data governance
would be an organizational discipline, driven by the
business but enabled by IT. We knew that information
was a shared asset, so we introduced a data management
function in IT, he explains. The function encompasses
new roles, new processes and specialized skills. As
data governance evolves, well be ready to support
it. Together, these two functions inform a workflow
that defines, tracks, manages and deploys information
across its life cycle at a company. After all, the extent
to which data is shared across business processes and
organizations is the extent to which it mandates formal
management and policy decisions.
The main hurdle facing these pioneers is translating the

all-too-real phenomenon of meaningless, unavailable,
duplicated, siloed data into an information-cleansing,
integration and deployment strategy that serves the
greater good.
Absent a tactical plan for addressing key data needs,
meetings of the data governance council degenerated
into complaint sessions: The data on the ERP system is
unusable. Marketing wont share its data. No one in the
C-suite understands how bad the companys information
really is. Who will fund the project?
The result? Data governance never transcends ownership
discussions and priority debates. It is, instead, relegated
to one more intellectual exercise at the company, with
plenty of people sharing opinions but no one claiming
accountability for fixing the problem.
But how do you kick off a new data governance initiative?

And how do you sustain it?
At many of these companies, data governance has

become a dirty word. An insurance executive recently
invited us to help relaunch a moribund data governance
effort. Just dont call it data governance, he warned
us. Youll lose credibility.
Launching Data Governance
Best Practices to Consider
A few years ago, when the early-adopter companies

launched data governance, there were few examples to
follow. Many of these organizations relied on a smattering
of vendor and consultant advice, which admonished them
to secure executive sponsorship and to manage data as
a corporate asset.
The good news is that companies embarking on data

governance for the first time are learning from those that
have gone before them. Heres a list of best practices to
consider before launching a data governance initiative:
That didnt necessarily help deliver results. Often a

visionary manager would convene like-minded people
on both the business and IT sides to agree that data
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Find the need, pain or problem. Sure it sounds trite, but

if data governance isnt addressing an acknowledged
business problem (such as fines for noncompliance or
duplicate customer records eroding marketing ROI), it
wont stick.

Know your road map. If you know your problem, you can
scope your project. And that leads to definable measures that can prove the value of data governance.
Get an executive sponsorif you need one. Companiesoften large ones with consensus-driven culturesrequire executive buy-in before launching crossfunctional initiatives such as data governance. Others,
however, need to show value quickly before enlisting
senior-level support.
We enlisted our CIO as the sponsor at the very
beginning of data governance, says Karen ODell,
director of business systems for Station Casinos, based
in Las Vegas. He was a champion on behalf of corporate
information and kept saying, We really need to do this.
Involving him ultimately got everyone else on board
pretty quickly.
Start small. You can build a data governance charter and
craft some guiding principles. Indeed, these are great
mechanisms to support data governance. But make sure
these apply to an actual project that addresses an identified business problem.
And ensure that the project solves at least a portion of
the business problem, while at the same time introducing
new processes and job roles. This is the proof of concept
that will give data governance the visibility it needs to
have staying power.
Proselytize your success. A successful project is the platform on which youll make the data governance pitch to
a broader audience of business constituents and executives. Show how implement-ing data policies, cleaning
up a subset of data, and deploying it to support a business process helped lower costs or drive new revenues.
People will be lining up to be next.
Think transformation. Data governance involves more
than buying a data-quality tool or hiring a data steward.
Clear policies for the definition, access and use of corporate information raise the probability that data can be
leveraged to streamline business processes, generate
new revenue and even drive innovation.
When data governance works, it not only meets one or
more business needs, it also cultivates an awareness of
specialized skills, processes and tools needed to define,
maintain and provision data across the enterprise. It
removes needless manual rework by businesspeople who
have day jobs, and it reduces the overreliance on human
relationships that many businesspeople still fall back on.
Good data governance ensures consistent and
meaningful information to support strategy and
streamline operations. In short, its what the data-driven
organization is all about.
The good news is that companies

embarking on data governance for the first
time are learning from those that have gone
before them.
4
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The Silent Problem of Data

By Keesa Bond
here is a silent problem in many

organizations. That problem is data.
More specifically, the problem is the
lack of governance over data. Without
governance, data is much like a two-year-old child
who is left alone for too long near the temptations
of a cookie jar. Once the child empties the jar, she
may experience momentary happiness, not realizing
the inevitable price of a tummy ache that will arrive
later.
In many respects, data is prone to suffer the same
fate as that child.Data is received. It is housed in a
database. It is foundational for running the business,
so more data appears to be beneficial at first.It is
only later that the ultimate lesson is evident because
without data governance, there is an eventual price
to pay. The penalty for lack of data governance
however is more permanent and pervasive than a
tummy ache.The negative consequences can vary
the full gamut from merely annoying to facilitating
the downfall of an organization.
If you are involved with data (and, in one way or another
that is all of us), ask yourself if you have ever found
an error in data (that will be almost everyone).Now
imagine your singular negative data experience versus
the overall potential of negative data experiences. Given
the global volume of data out there, if even 10 percent
of it is not being managed by a mature data governance
approach, then how can data ever be trusted? In reality,
that 10 percent figure is likely very low. There are so few
organizations with effective data governance strategies;
the overall percentage of data that is not being governed
is probably high.
Even in organizations where a data governance approach
is mature, there may be aspects of data that have been
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ignored. Some organizations, for example, ensure that

their day-to-day transactional business data always meets
quality standards, but fail to consider a governance
approach for data that has been manipulated or
aggregated for reporting purposes.This means that while
the original data in the transactional systems is reliable,
the data being used for reporting and analytics may
suffer from inaccuracies. Since many organizations use
analytics to determine future strategies, inaccuracies from
reported data can cause some serious and unexpected
complications.
The question becomes How can a voice be given to this
silent data problem? The answer to that question leads
directly to the doors of a Data Governance methodology.
Following the thought process, the next question is

probably What is Data Governance? In seeking definitions, it is clear that the meaning of Data Governance is not
succinctly defined. According to Wikipedia:
Data governance is an emerging discipline with an evolving definition. The discipline embodies a convergence of
data quality, data management, data policies, business process management, and risk management surrounding the
handling of data in an organization. Through data governance, organizations are looking to exercise positive control
over the processes and methods used by their data stewards and data custodians to handle data.
Gwen Thomas, President of DataGovernance.com also provides several definitions.My preferred choice of those
definitions says that, Data Governance is the exercise of decision-making and authority for data-related matters.
In considering these definitions, some very important concepts begin to surface. Obviously the asset, data, needs
to be leveraged, secured and aligned to allow appropriate protections and decision-making. Adding to these
concepts, I would suggest that by the completion of a successful data governance implementation, data will be fully
and completely identified, standardized across the full organizational structure, appropriately available and verified as
accurate.
On some level, most businesses recognize the foundational needs for data governance, but recognition alone is not
enough to solve the silent problem of data.Data Governance needs a champion, an enabler or perhaps, in the worst
case, a crisis that makes the silence intolerable and allows the necessary effort to effect change. Without organizational
buy-in Data Governance approaches seldom succeed. If you consider that data governance initiatives appear to involve
an expense with few monetary rewards in return, you can see that the challenge of championing a Data Governance
program is not trivial.
Timelines for a Data Governance implementation will usually be lengthy and the rewards achieved are not always
evident. The protections that Data Governance programs provide involve the prevention of negative consequences
and since negative consequences that are not realized are invisible to most of the corporation, proving value in order
to garner funds for a Data Governance approach may be challenging. When seeking funding, it is easy to explain to
management the benefit of a new data warehouse, for example, but much more difficult to explain the benefits of
preventing invalid conclusions that could arise from data that wasnt effectively managed.Examples of data integrity
problems are difficult to explain unless they have already been shown to be occurring, but data integrity issues may
occur without any realization long before they are discovered. The perception of the absence of data integrity issues
may be inaccurate. The reality of the absence of data integrity issues is the goal of a mature Data Governance program.
Consider a scenario of using a database to store customer information. Perhaps you have a table like this:
First Name
Jane
Last Name
Doe
Doe
JD
Marsh
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Number
800
800
Street
Pine St.
City
Ashland
State
Kentucky
ZIP
41163
Pine St.
Flatwoods
Kentucky
41167
Pine St.
Flatwoods
KY
99999

Could this represent a data integrity issue? It is possible
that all three rows in this table really only represent the
same individual, Jane Doe Marsh.Alternatively, the rows
in this table could represent three different individuals. If
this organization had a mature data governance policy in
effect, we would know the reality.
Perhaps you can visualize many considerations for Data
Governance. Once you identify one data concern and
start to think about solving it, you will likely begin to
think of others. While there are standards, approaches
and tools that can be used to launch and support a Data
Governance initiative, the better the understanding of the
data as it exists today, the easier the ability to begin the
effort.
Consider metadata. If your organization has a
comprehensive data dictionary, listing all the metadata,
with universally understood corporate meanings (a
business glossary) for each piece of metadata, you have
already achieved one step towards Data Governance.If
you have a thorough inventory that identifies the
location of all the data (including flat files and other
quasi-database locations), then you have another
piece of the data governance information available.Is

there an organizational structure that oversees (owns)
data? Is information about data shared throughout
the organization in a timely manner? Is data tested
for integrity? Are data relationships understood
and documented? Are data audits being done to
verify that the data is being used appropriate by all
stakeholders? Is data change management effective
and complete? All these are facets of a data governance
program.
Data Governance has been complicated by mergers
and acquisitions, new initiatives, regulations and simple
lack of interest.However, each new piece of data that
arrives may contribute to moving the organization toward
additional data integrity problems and concerns. Every
report or analysis that involves data could be at risk.
The silent problem of data continues to exist. Data
Governance can give voice to the problem and provide
the foundation for a solution. Even initiating a Data
Governance program moves the organization one
step closer to ensuring that the valuable asset of data
continues to be just that, a valuable asset.
Data Governance has been complicated

by mergers and acquisitions, new initiatives,
regulations and simple lack of interest.
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Data Governance: Learning Data Lessons

By Keesa Bond
n the macro viewpoint, data governance

is data governance, regardless. The micro
view, however, should celebrate the nuances
of data governance. One of those nuances
is Data Governance for Education, which includes some
unique challenges that are not always obvious.
Whether the notepaper being used is kindergarten blue
or college ruled, the approaches to managing data in
academia have been hampered by lack of funds and
resources. The end result is that although educational
environments could definitely benefit from the knowledge
that could be found in the data they store, they are
frequently prevented from effectively learning important
data lessons. Challenging distinctions for education
include the storage of massive amounts of unstructured
and/or historical data that has not been computerized,
the necessity of a robust privacy approach to protect
student data, maintenance of the syllabi and course
materials, faculty information that must be maintained to
ensure quality instructors, certification and re-certification
preparation information and human resources data, just
to name a small sample.
Despite the complexities, it is easy to understand that
education environments receive overwhelming amounts
of data that must become data assets. The question is,
what is the best approach to bring universal meaning
and order to that data?
Just as sports teams need a coach to help the team

excel, data governance initiatives need authoritative
sponsorship. The data governance problem as a whole
would be overwhelming and the effort would likely never
move beyond the outline stage without a sponsor to
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Defining the Problem

Before the problem can be solved, it needs to be
understood. An example of a problem statement might
be, Data is being stored in a manner that precludes its
usefulness both for day-to-day operations and planning.
From there, the problem statement can be further
defined:
There is no road map for defining the business terms,
definitions, appropriate data uses or metadata.
The Voice of Authority
facilitate, mitigate and provide appropriate resources.

Once a sponsor is identified, the scope of the Data
Governance initiative can be determined and a plan of
action can be designed.
continued
There is no universal understanding of the chaining of
data assets.
There are no roles and responsibilities directly tied to
data quality, data protection or data governance.

Working the Problem

With the problem statement defined, the data
governance focus should begin with the plan to transform
the As Is to the To Be.
Breaking the process into logical sections, incrementally
moving forward, establishing checkpoints, re-assessing
when necessary and publishing successes to appropriate
officials will help ensure that the work effort remains on
track.
Strength from Weakness

Silos of data are typically one of the weaknesses
identified during the majority of Data Governance
initiatives. While silos lead to data inconsistencies and
often prevent effective communication those same
silos can become a strength during an initial Data
Governance effort. Since most education environments
have developed logical data silos (departments, schools,
etc.) simply by the nature of their mission, one approach
might be to use those silos to initially subset the task into
manageable modules.
Silos, Experts and Objectives
This stage begins with some detective work and may

uncover some unexpected outcomes. The silos that were
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What are the Data Assets?

Now that the silos have been identified, the composition
of the Data Governance team may need to change. The
members now need to begin the detailed discovery
phase of the initiative. The goal for the Discovery Phase is
to discover business and technical subject matter experts
who can help identify and explain data that is important
to their particular silo.
Identification should include all facets of the data. In
addition to obvious sources of data (such as databases)
data assets should be considered in pseudo-databases
which may include information stored in spreadsheets,
hard copy and even small local databases. If accurate
metadata is available, it will be valuable during this
phase. Code reviews may be helpful to determine usage
patterns. Reporting and statistical analysis requirements
should also be reviewed since they may point to data
assets that are critical to ongoing operations.
What is the Source of Those Assets?
A Data Governance team is now needed. It should be

composed of members who are familiar with the full
spectrum of academic operations and data flows. These
are not typically the information technology professionals,
but instead they are the business experts. Depending on
the type and size of the educational environment, these
members could include employees of the administrative
branches, academic advisors or possibly representatives
of the offices of the Dean or Provost. These should
be the individuals who understand the data, how it is
sourced and how it is used. Employees who are familiar
with problems or issues due to lack of data quality can
be instrumental in driving positive changes, so including
those individuals in the team is optimal.
defined in the first discussions may not be those that are

listed in the final meeting. That is a benefit of bringing
this team together since the initial assumptions may not
match the reality.
After identifying the data assets, it becomes important

to know the source of those assets. How is the data
obtained? Is it entered via an online application,
uploaded to a database from a source list, or generated
by a batch process?
An ancillary question that can provide value toward
further data governance steps is how often the data is
updated and/or accessed. Knowing whether data assets
are historical in nature or used frequently can help with
later prioritization considerations.
Take a Check Point

After the data assets and their sources of data have been
identified, a compilation of the gathered information

is needed. For each silo, a list of the data assets, the
sources of those assets and their definitions should be
prepared. An overarching analysis of these lists will likely
indicate that some data assets are used by more than
one silo. This is possibly the first opportunity for the
Data Governance team to see realizable opportunities
for improvements for data issues such as duplication,
ambiguity, incompleteness or other data concerns.
How are Those Assets Currently Being Used?

With the overarching list of data assets, a determination
of how those assets are being used can begin. The
team will undoubtedly confront some obstacles in this
phase, but without this information, the foundation of
the Data Governance program will be unstable and each
successive step may cause re-work.
Definition scenarios can be especially challenging
to decipher. Consider data assets that are named
differently but which represent the same meaning, both
within silos and spanning different silos. For example,
what do the terms admission and enrollment mean?
Do they mean the same thing, but are just known by
different data naming conventions? If so, imagine the
confusion of the new employee who sees these terms
as presenting two different concepts because they
are named differently. Perhaps these two terms do
mean different things, but each department ascribes
their own individually distinct meaning and there is no
single holistic definition for each term. Consider too
that historically, these terms may have had completely
different meanings than they do now and perhaps some
of these older meanings are still housed in currently used

information systems.
How Should Those Assets be Used?

Now that the current use of the data is understood, it is
time to determine how the data should be used. Often
the currently used answer is different than the should be
used answer. Duplication of data, data inconsistencies,
and misleading data definitions are all prime candidates
for review.
Predominant data quality standards and validations will
logically begin to be defined during this step. At this
point, the team may want to consider beginning the
effort to build an initial business glossary which can
provide meaning and definition to the data asset terms
and set standards to facilitate clear communication for
the rest of the Data Governance process.
Who is the Owner?

One of the most critical parts of any data governance
approach is the identification of data stewards. Data
stewards are considered the owner of the data asset.
They hold responsibility for ensuring that the data within
their purview meets quality standards, answers a business
need and that it is appropriately available to authorized
users. Data stewards are the champions of the data. They
are the ultimate layer of quality control. Typically their job
function will depend upon the data that they own and
therefore, they will have a vested interest in maintaining it
properly.
One of the most critical parts of any

data governance approach is the
identification of data stewards.
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Applying a Data Governance Maturity

Approach
All the data lessons learned have been leading up to this
point. This is when the true Data Governance maturity
phase can begin. Depending on the outcome of the
previous investigations, a decision can be made about
the nature of the appropriate Data Governance model
and approach. With the approach defined, now is the
time to begin the synchronization efforts that will bring
the silos into the whole.
Learning the Right Lesson

Data Governance is not a onetime event. Data must be
consistently viewed as an asset and the culture must
recognize and support the continuing protection of the
Data Governance processes. With the right sponsor, the
evolutionary process to enable an ongoing governed
approach to data quality and protection will provide
significant benefits both for the present and the future. To
enable that future, however, the culture must change and
adapt to one that recognizes the value of the data and as
a result, embraces a Data Governance focused mindset.
Before academia can learn the lessons that the data
assets provide, they have to build the foundational
knowledge required. Data Governance provides that
foundation.
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Understanding

A Data Governance Primer

The Silent Problem of Data

Data Governance: Learning Data Lessons