Most people use the terms Data Governance and Data Stewardship interchangeably, however there is actually a difference. Data Governance is integrating cross-functional teams to establish interdependent rules or to resolve issues or to provide services to data stakeholders. The cross-functional teams – Data Stewards and/or Data Governors – have the greatest positive impact when both the Business side of operations and information technology staff work together. These teams set policies IT and Data groups will follow as they establish their architectures, implement best practices, and address requirements. Data Governance can be considered the overall process of making this work.
Data Governance is “a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods.”
Data Governance has these general goals:
- Enable better decision-making
- Reduce operational friction
- Protect the needs of data stakeholders
- Train management and staff to adopt common approaches to data issues
- Build standard, repeatable processes
- Reduce costs and increase effectiveness through coordination of efforts
- Ensure transparency of processes
You may ask what is Data Stewardship? Consider these definitions in a general sense:
- Stewardship is taking responsibility for the survival and well-being of something which is valued.
- Stewardship is taking responsibility for taking good care of resources entrusted to one.
- Stewardship is the science, art and skill of responsible and accountable management of resources.
Data Stewardship, is the act of being responsible with the management of data assets that may or may not belong to the stewards themselves. Data Stewards should always have the best interest of the organization/corporation in mind. Some may represent the needs of the entire organization. Others may be tasked with representing a smaller constituency: a business unit, department, or even a set of data themselves.
ICON can provide assistance to organizations/corporations wanting to establish a data governance and/or data stewardship program. ICON consultants will identify the protocols and work flow of data to ensure the highest quality data is obtained. ICON consultants will perform analysis on each business unit and data touch-points delivering a data governance framework which will address aspects such as:
- organizational bodies
- rules
- decision rights (how we “decide how to decide”)
- accountabilities, or
- monitoring, controls, and other enforcement methods
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