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Data governance

Data governance refers to an entity’s management of data in terms of availability, relevancy, usability,
integrity, and security. Organizations use data governance to manage their information knowledge and to
understand their data in terms of where and how it was obtained and whether it adheres to company
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policies and rules.
Data governance practices provide a holistic approach to managing, improving, and leveraging
information to help an enterprise's overall data management efficiency.

Data governance is more important today than ever. Although critical for regulatory, legal and corporate
governance initiatives, the role of data governance has expanded to become a foundation for driving
business growth initiatives as well. Since 2010, the industry focus on analytics, business intelligence, and
big data programs has elevated the impact of data governance by driving requirements to make data
easier to find, associate data with applications and business line growth programs, and improve the
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confidence and trust that data is accurate enough for business decision-making.

Objectives
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The following are the basic objectives of any system of data governance:
 Enable better decision-making
 Reduce operational friction
 Protect the needs of data stakeholders
 Train management and staff to adopt common approaches to data issues
 Build standard, repeatable processes
 Reduce costs and increase effectiveness through coordination of efforts
 Ensure transparency of processes

Principles
In achieving these objectives, there are a number of basic data governance principles to follow, including
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the following:
 Integrity. Data governance participants will practice integrity in their dealings with each other; they will
be truthful and forthcoming when discussing drivers, constraints, options, and impacts for data-
related decisions.
 Transparency. Data governance and stewardship processes will exhibit transparency; it should be
clear to all participants and auditors how and when data-related decisions and controls were
introduced into the processes.

4 See www.ibm.com/analytics/data-governance, accessed August 10, 2019.
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See www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/data-integration/oracle-data-governance-2672357.pdf, accessed
August 10, 2019.
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See www.datagovernance.com/adg_data_governance_goals/, accessed August 10, 2019.
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See footnote 6.

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