Any CIO undertaking a Data Governance initiative should answer/address the following 3 questions:
- Why – Why are we undertaking a Data Governance initiative?
- Who – Who is the sponsor/champion for the Data Governance initiative? We have to ensure that:
- What – What is the outcome of Why.
a) Are we doing this to support Business/Technology transformation?
b) Are we doing this to provide consistency across all business units?
c) Are we doing this to improve Data Quality and help in more effective decisions?
d) Are we doing this to improve or measure compliance?
a) Business Executive(s) is the sponsor for the Data Governance project
b) Full participation from Business users in all the Steering Committees and the decision bodies (Councils)
c) The Business Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are helping define and standardize the Business Glossary
d) The Business users are owning the data and ensuring the data quality
a) We have to first baseline the awareness and maturity of Data Governance, Business Glossary, and Data Quality
b) Based on the above findings, and the Why, we need to create a strategy and Roadmap for Establishing and Executing the Data Governance that aligns with the Why.
c) Put in place a process to continuously measure the progress and report it to the decision-making body
d) If the driver is Business/Technology transformation, then empower the Data Governance decision-making body, Steering Committees, and the Data Owners/Stewards to be the approvers of the To-Be state.