The obvious answer to this is: SOMEWHERE! When I have clients who don’t know where to start on their data governance initiatives, I like to assess what data governance practices or disciplines my clients are now implementing. For example, what if they really don’t have a good way to audit and manage the data, but they have business user dedication and buy-in? I say yahoo! let’s start there.
I believe the best place to start is governance around master data. This is the data that should be the lifeblood of our company. It feeds downstream systems, as well as creates a great store of integrated quality data for the data warehouse. Governance of this data is crucial. It could include:
- Security of the data (this means ongoing monitoring and auditing), especially when we are using the internet.
- Privacy of our customer information is vital to retention.
- Accuracy of the data is required by the enterprise to ensure no further quality checks when feeding master data to other systems.
- Integration of the data is required to ensure the integrity of the data being sent.
Wherever you are in your data governance initiative, you need to develop a data governance strategy that fits your organization. This strategy should have input from the solution architects, data architects, data modelers and development staff. It should be a discipline that is taught to EVERY new employee and monitored/audited by the data governance staff. YES, that does mean you need resources that are full-time and dedicated to data governance. But it will be worth it!
