Establish Data Governance

Establish data trust and accountability with strong governance.

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Contributors

Collibra
Global Data Excellence
University of British Columbia
Knowledge Integrity Inc.
San Diego Zoo
Beca Applied Technologies
Braun Intertec

Your Challenge

Organizations are facing challenges from explosive data growth (volume, velocity) and the need to use more new sources of data like social media (variety) just to remain in business, putting a strain on enterprise data management.
Although the need for a data governance program can be evident, business buy-in remains a real barrier. IT must create a comprehensive governance plan and socialize the value of data governance to gain buy-in.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Data governance enables data-driven insight. Hearing the word governance can trigger thoughts of bureaucracy, but instead think of governance as a structure for making better use of data.
Collaboration is critical. The business may own the data, but IT understands the data. Data governance will not work unless the business and IT work together.
Data governance is an engine that needs fuel, and it powers the organization up the data value chain. Data governance is an engine that puts the pistons of policies and procedures, master data management, data quality, and data architecture into motion. Without data governance, these elements of data management would not be possible.

Impact and Result

Gather requirements for your data governance program by interviewing key stakeholders and identifying prevalent, data-related pains. Understand how data is created, used, and curated throughout the enterprise to gain a high-level perspective of data requirements.
Identify the organization’s current state of data governance capability along with the target state, identify the gaps, and then define solutions across a balance of planning and control activities to fill those gaps. Ensure business initiatives are woven into the mix.
Create a comprehensive roadmap to prioritize initiatives and delineate responsibilities among data stewards, data owners, and members of the data governance steering committee.
Gain complete buy-in from the business and IT stakeholders to move forward with the implementation of data governance. Effectively communicate initiatives to end users and executives to reduce resistance.

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a data governance program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Establish Data Governance – Executive Brief

1. Build a collaborative data governance engine plan

Gain an in-depth understanding of what organizational data is critical to the business and needs governing. Establish a concrete starting point by assessing the maturity of existing data governance initiatives.

2. Develop the data governance implementation roadmap

Create a detailed and practical roadmap based on the organization’s current and future state to show the value of a data governance program to the business.

3. Drive the data governance program engine

Put the councils, committees, policies, and procedures in place to provide the structure that the organization needs to better use its data. Set up a governance framework that will be self-sustaining through ongoing communication plans.

Guided Implementations

This guided implementation is an eight call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Build a collaborative data governance engine plan

Call #1 - Identify what data governance means to the organization.

Call #2 - Discuss the strategic plans of the business and establish a business context for data governance.

Call #3 - Determine data governance program strategies.

Guided Implementation #2 - Develop the data governance implementation roadmap

Call #1 - Discuss the results of the data governance requirements gathering assessment.

Call #2 - Plan initiatives for data governance.

Call #3 - Create a roadmap and discuss next steps.

Guided Implementation #3 - Drive the data governance program engine

Call #1 - Discuss and create the policies, procedures, roles, and responsibilities that will enable your organization to use its data for shared insight.

Call #2 - Develop a communication plan to maintain the governance program.

Book Your Workshop

Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Develop a Vision for the Data Governance Program

The Purpose

Identify key business data assets that need to be governed.
Create a unifying vision for the data governance program.

Key Benefits Achieved

Understand the value of data governance and how it can help the organization better leverage its data.
Gain knowledge of how data governance can benefit both IT and the business.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Establish business context and value of data governance to the organization

1.2

Assess the value, benefits, challenges, and opportunities associated with data governance

1.3

Develop the vision, purpose, and scope of data governance for the business

Defined and holistic data governance vision

1.4

Identify data governance enablers

1.5

Interview business stakeholders

IT and business leadership alignment
Business leadership communication plan
Data governance program charter

Module 2: Assess Data Flow in the Business

The Purpose

Assess which data contains value and/or risk and determine metrics that will determine how valuable the data is to the organization.
Assess where the organization currently stands in data governance initiatives.
Determine gaps between the current and future states of the data governance program.

Key Benefits Achieved

Gain a holistic understanding of organizational data and how it flows through business units and systems.
Identify which data should fall under the governance umbrella.
Determine a practical starting point for the program.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Evaluate the risks and value of critical data

2.2

Map and understand the flow of data within the business

Data governance scope

2.3

Identify data sources and users

Data flow diagram with identified key data sources and users

2.4

Assess current data governance capabilities

Data governance maturity assessment

2.5

Set target data governance capabilities

Business data glossary

2.6

Identify performance gaps

Module 3: Analyze Gaps and Develop Initiatives

The Purpose

Determine strategic initiatives and create a roadmap outlining key steps required to get the organization to start enabling data-driven insights.
Determine timing of the initiatives.

Key Benefits Achieved

Establish clear direction for the data governance program.
Step-by-step outline of how to create effective data governance, with true business-IT collaboration.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Evaluate performance gaps for remediation

3.2

Develop alignment of initiatives to strategies

3.3

Consolidate data governance initiatives and strategies

Data policy templates
Job descriptions and RACI

3.4

Develop a project timeline and define key success factors

Data governance initiative plan and timeline

Module 4: Design Roadmap and Plan Implementation

The Purpose

Consolidate the roadmap and other strategies to determine the plan of action from Day One.
Create the required policies, procedures, and positions for data governance to be sustainable and effective.

Key Benefits Achieved

Prioritized initiatives with dependencies mapped out.
A clearly communicated plan for data governance that will have full business backing.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Develop a plan of action

Data governance roadmap

4.2

Prioritize actions

Action plan

4.3

Build a data governance roadmap (short and long term)

Business case presentation
Job descriptions

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Altra Federal Credit Union

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

I do not know amount of time or $ impact right now. Igor identified a few key areas of focus for our DG program (quality and a data catalog) and told us about software tools that could help Altra in these areas.

Apogee Enterprises, Inc

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

The analyst was extremely knowledgeable from both a tactical and strategic point of view.

ROLTA AdvizeX

Workshop

10/10

$31,833

Best - getting a very good picture of everything that needs to be considered when doing data governance. Worst - it is needed, but the effort to get the answers is very taxing. The processing and decision making becomes very challenging by the end of the exercise.

College of New Caledonia

Guided Implementation

8/10

$4,000

Best: Dirk is very knowledgeable. Worst: they aren't bad but the supporting materials could be refined further.

Investors Bank

Guided Implementation

10/10

$1,400

The constant working relationship with please you trust and know.

Libro Credit Union

Guided Implementation

9/10

$25,000

Present was excellent and asked the right questions and reviewed our current state. He offered solutions and next steps.

Public Safety Canada

Workshop

9/10

$50,000

No worst experience to discuss. The session was great and allowed us to have frank discussions with many different points of view. Aside from spending some time fiding the right wording on the first day of the session it was very useful and engaging.

City of Colorado Springs

Workshop

10/10

$22,283

ASEA

Guided Implementation

9/10

$60,484

Louisiana State University

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

FinDev Canada

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Lifestyle Solutions ( AUST ) LTD

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Too early to judge the impact tools may have. Really good meeting with Dirk, great to be able to discuss our issues and obtain some good insights

Montana Department of Transportation

Guided Implementation

10/10

$20,373

B: focused discussion that went "over time" on DG/Data-Business relations, vendor selection/management, and comments on EA/DG Charter W: a bit of echo in webex audio, not too disruptive however.

Mott MacDonald LLC

Guided Implementation

10/10

$43,501

Crystal is a very good listener and absolutely gets the struggles of my organisation, and her tailored advice helps us push things forward. I can't imagine working towards our programme objectives without her.

Kentucky COT (Commonwealth Office of Technology)

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Adler University

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

120

PGIM Fixed Income

Guided Implementation

10/10

$2,546

Rajesh provided information and suggestions that were relevant to the issues I raised. I'm confident that if I take action on his suggestions I will have greater clarity on the correct course of action to take.

Olmsted Medical Center

Guided Implementation

8/10

$509K

PCI Gaming

Workshop

10/10

$63,667

This was intended to be an onsite workshop. Reddy and Paul made the four days enjoyable, informative, and engaging. I received numerous calls and emails thanking me for the invite and everyone is looking forward to starting the project. The worse part of...

American Bankers Association

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

CPS Energy

Workshop

9/10

$63,667

Workshop itself - engaging, interactive, effective. Worst part - Facilitator methods of walking the entire group through items one by one for feedback. This method is tiresome and tends to leading to folks disengaging. We switched to methods (at my recommendation) that had people brainstorming on sticky notes and then organizing and summarizing is smaller groups. This was definitely superior. I recommend training for workshop facilitators on various facilitation techniques. The best training I have ever had is Interaction Associates Essential Facilitation.

Ara Institute of Canterbury

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

excellent start to a complex area. no way of quantifying value or time saved at this point, but great to hear from someone so expert.

City of Saskatoon, SK

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Benchmade

Workshop

8/10

$636K

Best - the workshop resulted in a suggested project plan for 6 areas of our BI project. Best - the workshop was designed for participant participation and included hands-on breakout sessions. Minor - worst - I would prefer that the final recap meet...

Franco Signor LLC

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

The best part is that the discussion gave me actionable ideas on how to approach data issues that we are having. I plan to engage the team for a data governance workshop.

Hope Global

Guided Implementation

9/10

$6,366

Good in person, one on one meeting opportunities.

Peoples Bank

Guided Implementation

10/10

$70,034

City of Saskatoon, SK

Guided Implementation

10/10

$95,000

110

Crystal did a great job with the call and providing us with a high (and even medium) level overview of the data governance model and the things that we need to consider moving forward. We are extremely excited about moving forward on this initiative tog...

Bob Barker Company, Inc.

Workshop

10/10

$63,667

Igor and Filipe, were amazing! The breakout sessions helped us better understand the need for data governance. The worst part was the final day, but that was because my schedule was impacted by a personnel issue. It had nothing to do with the Info-Tech Team.

The Corporation of the City of Kingston

Guided Implementation

7/10

$2,000