Establish Data Governance
Deliver measurable business value.
- Organizations are faced with challenges associated with changing data landscapes, evolving business models, industry disruptions, regulatory and compliance obligations, as well as changing and maturing user landscapes and demands for data.
- Although the need for a data governance program is often evident, organizations often miss the mark.
- Your data governance efforts should be directly aligned to delivering measurable business value by supporting key strategic initiates, value streams, and underlying business capabilities.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Your organization’s value streams and their associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you may experience elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and exposure to increased business risk.
- Ensure your data governance program delivers measurable business value by aligning the associated data governance initiatives with the business architecture.
- Data governance must continuously align with the organization’s enterprise governance function. It should not be perceived as a pet project of IT, but rather as an enterprise-wide, business-driven initiative.
Impact and Result
Info-Tech’s approach to establishing and sustaining effective data governance is anchored in the strong alignment of organizational value streams and their business capabilities with key data governance dimensions and initiatives. Info-Tech's approach will help you:
- Align your data governance with enterprise governance, business strategy, and the organizational value streams to ensure the program delivers measurable business value.
- Understand your current data governance capabilities and build out a future state that is right-sized and relevant.
- Define data governance leadership, accountability, and responsibility.
- Ensure data governance is supported by an operating model that effectively manages change and communication and fosters a culture of data excellence.
Establish Data Governance
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish data governance, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in this initiative.
1. Build business and user context
Align data governance with your organization’s business strategy, value streams, and business capabilities to ensure the data governance program delivers measurable business value.
2. Understand your current data governance capabilities
Understand the core components of an effective data governance program and your current data governance capabilities. Gauge your organization’s current data culture by leveraging Info-Tech’s Data Culture Diagnostic.
3. Build a target state roadmap and plan
Formulate a target state plan with defined data leadership, accountability, and responsibility that is supported by an operating model that effectively manages change, manages communication, and fosters a culture of data excellence.
Member Testimonials
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.
9.3/10
Overall Impact
$31,405
Average $ Saved
25
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Toronto Community Housing Corporation
Workshop
10/10
$100K
44
Angola LNG
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,395
50
New Market
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
50
M. Holland Company
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
5
Shared Services Canada
Workshop
8/10
N/A
47
Victorinox AG
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
La-Z-Boy Incorporated
Workshop
9/10
$61,979
85
Blommer Chocolate Company
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,395
5
M. Holland Company
Guided Implementation
10/10
$11,156
5
Rack Room Shoes
Workshop
10/10
$30,989
20
Oregon State University
Workshop
10/10
$123K
95
Lifestyle Solutions ( AUST ) LTD
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,692
10
Community Health Choice, Inc.
Workshop
8/10
$60,319
20
Bay Cove Human Services Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
2
Allegheny County, PA
Workshop
10/10
$123K
50
Belmond
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,000
5
M. Holland Company
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
5
Hogan
Guided Implementation
8/10
$25,000
10
Oregon Department of Employment
Workshop
10/10
$34,088
50
LInea Directa SAS
Guided Implementation
10/10
$34,088
10
Ricoh Australia (Pty) Ltd.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$60,319
20
The St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital
Workshop
10/10
$23,500
110
Dura-Line Corporation
Guided Implementation
10/10
$21,692
5
The Rehmann Group LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$30,989
35
CGFNS International
Guided Implementation
8/10
$30,159
10
Altra Federal Credit Union
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Apogee Enterprises, Inc
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
ROLTA AdvizeX
Workshop
10/10
$30,989
20
College of New Caledonia
Guided Implementation
8/10
$4,000
10
Investors Bank
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1,363
2
Onsite Workshop: Establish Data Governance
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: Establish Business Context and Value
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
Establish business context, value, and scope of data governance at the organization
Introduction to Info-Tech’s data governance framework
Discuss vision and mission for data governance
Understand your business architecture, including your business capability map and value streams
Build use cases aligned to core business capabilities
- Sample use cases (tied to the business capability map) and a repeatable use case framework
- Vision and mission for data governance
Module 2: Understand Current Data Governance Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels
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
Understand your current data governance capabilities and maturity
- Current state of data governance maturity
Set target-state data governance capabilities
- Definition of target state
Module 3: Build Data Domain to Data Governance Role Mapping
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
Evaluate and prioritize performance gaps
Develop and consolidate data governance target-state initiatives
- Target-state data governance initiatives
Define the role of data governance: data domain to data governance role mapping
- Data domain to data governance role mapping
Module 4: Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State
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
Identify and prioritize next steps
- Initialized roadmap
Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI
- Initialized RACI
- Completed Business Data Glossary (BDG)
Wrap-up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support
- Templated data catalog
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Build business and user context
- Call #1 - Understand drivers, business context, and scope of data governance at your organization. Introduce Info-Tech’s approach and resources.
- Call #2 - Provide a detailed overview of Info-Tech’s approach, framework, Data Culture Diagnostic, and blueprint.
- Call #3 - Introduce business capabilities. Align them with your data governance capabilities. Begin to develop a use case framework.
Guided Implementation #2 - Understand your current data governance capabilities
- Call #1 - Further discuss the organization’s alignment of business capabilities to data governance capabilities and use case framework.
- Call #2 - Understand and assess your current data governance capabilities and data environment. Review your Data Culture Diagnostic Scorecard, if applicable.
Guided Implementation #3 - Build a target state roadmap and plan
- Call #1 - Plan target state and corresponding initiatives.
- Call #2 - Identify program risks and formulate a roadmap.
- Call #3 - Identify and prioritize improvements. Define a RACI chart.
- Call #4 - Summarize results and plan next steps.
Contributors
- David N. Weber, Executive Director - Planning, Research and Effectiveness, Palm Beach State College
- Izabela Edmunds, Information Architect, Mott MacDonald