Why having a good data governance policy matters

Why having a good data governance policy matters

When it comes to data governance policy, companies are aware they need one, but few of them know where to start. A lot of them are at a crossroads when it comes to creating a policy that works for their organisation. But the first instinct of reaching to a standard policy wouldn’t work because it won’t meet your corporate strategy.

To clear the air from all uncertainties, we had a chat with Nicola Askham – a known data governance coach and expert, after her presentation at Data 2020 Summit 2019 to discuss what is necessary to consider when writing a data governance policy.

Hyperight: Hi Nicola, welcome to Data 2020 Summit 2019, we are pleased to have you as one of the speakers again this year. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

Nicola: Thank you for having me, I love coming back to Data 2020 Summit, it’s one of my favourite data conferences because I love the feel and the vibe we get here. I’m known as The Data Governance Coach and my mission is to help as many people as possible to be successful in data governance. I’m a consultant, but I love doing training and coaching so I can help people do data governance themselves. They understand their organisations and challenges, but what they don’t know is how to do data governance. And I’m lucky because I get to work with lots of different companies in lots of different sectors.

Hyperight: Nicola, you presented on the topic “How to write a good data governance policy”. What are the key points companies should have in mind when creating their data governance policy?

Nicola: As far as the key points go, I would mention: 

Hyperight: Who from the organisation should be involved in drafting the data governance policy?

Nicola: If you have a data governance lead or manager, they’re probably leading the work. But you also want to look into the wider data management function or team because you need to make sure it’s aligned to everything else there’s going on. You definitely need to include your executive sponsor because they’re probably going to be the person signing off and you don’t want to wait until it’s finished and for them to see it for the first time.

I would also include your potential data owners – they’re key people when it comes to data and they’re senior stakeholders for your Data Governance initiative so get them involved even if it’s just in a workshop to brainstorm the principles. I usually involve key consumers or producers of data as well, because they’re going to be impacted by what you’re doing in a good way. They need to feel like they’ve had a say.

And finally, I look at the legal, risk, compliance teams to see if they want to have any involvement in it. Because if you work in an industry that’s regulated, there may well be a regulation that says you need data governance and these teams may have very particular things they want to have included in your policy. Having all these departments and stakeholders involved may sound hard, but it actually makes it a lot easier when you have all these people involved.

Hyperight: What department should initiate and define the data quality strategy?

Nicola: In an ideal world, you’d have a Chief Data Officer and it would be within that area. Having a CDO is becoming more common, but there are still a lot of companies that don’t have one.

You want to include it in a function that is looking holistically across the whole company. Most specialised areas will not be a good place, for example, if the finance department initiates it, they are going to look at it from a finance point of view only.

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