Scribd
Upload
176 views

Data Governance

Data governance is a set of principles and practices that ensure high quality data through the entire lifecycle. It establishes rules and processes around data operations and decisions. The four main functions of data governance are: establishing and maintaining standards, establishing accountability, managing and communicating data development, and providing information about the data environment. A common implementation of data governance includes cross-functional representation, an ongoing governance process, and defined roles such as data stewards. Data governance is important for data analysts as it helps resolve data inconsistencies, aids in learning available data, and keeps them informed of changes to improve the quality of their analysis and insights.

Uploaded by

JAN PAOLO LUMPAZ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
176 views

Data Governance

Data governance is a set of principles and practices that ensure high quality data through the entire lifecycle. It establishes rules and processes around data operations and decisions. The four main functions of data governance are: establishing and maintaining standards, establishing accountability, managing and communicating data development, and providing information about the data environment. A common implementation of data governance includes cross-functional representation, an ongoing governance process, and defined roles such as data stewards. Data governance is important for data analysts as it helps resolve data inconsistencies, aids in learning available data, and keeps them informed of changes to improve the quality of their analysis and insights.

Uploaded by

JAN PAOLO LUMPAZ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

LUMPAZ, JAN PAOLO M.

September 28, 2020

3rd Year BSBA – Marketing Management

IBA101 Activity

Guide Questions:

1. What is Data Governance?


2. What are the 4 main functions of Data Governance? Explain.
3. What is the common implementation of Data Governance?
4. Why is data governance important to you as the data analyst?

Answers:

1) Data governance is a set of principles and practices that ensure high quality through
the complete lifecycle of your data. Its essence is to put some structure around how
data is managed and used in an organization by establishing rules and processes
around a variety of data related operations and decisions to help data stakeholders
across any organization identify and meet their information needs.

2) The Four Main Functions of Data Governance are the following:

a) Establishing & Maintaining Standards

The primary role of data governance is to establish and maintain


standards around data. This can take a few different forms. The first, is
identifying what sources are preferred for each type of data or metric used in an
organization. There's an idea called Master Data Management, or MDM, which
identifies the most critical data within an organization and ensures there is a clear
understanding of where that data should come from and where it should be
stored. A related idea is that of common reference data. Generally speaking,
reference data provides sets of allowable values for certain data attributes, or
provides additional descriptive information about key ideas in the company's data
environment. Sometimes this data is loosely referred to as look up data, or
dimensional data. Data governance helps to ensure that reference data is
complete and accurate. Data governance also helps to establish common
definitions and calculations. The same term might have different meanings
across the organization. And different teams might use slightly different
calculations to arrive at the same metric. Governance helps to ensure that
everyone is on the same page and does things the same way. The last set of
controls are around data access and compliance. A governance process can
help to find who should have access to data under what circumstances, and is
often applied in support of more general sarbanes oxilly, or sox controls and data
privacy concerns.

b) Establishing Accountability for Data

The second major role of data governance is to establish and maintain


accountability for data. Usually, organizations assign responsibility for specific
data domains to individuals called data stewards. Data stewards are generally
accountable for ensuring that their area has the correct definitions and are
responsible for the overall state of their data domain. Governance can also help
identify who is responsible for addressing various types of data quality issues like
data privacy.

c) Managing & Communicating Data Development

The third role of data governance is to help manage the overall process of
data development and to communicate changes to the data environment. Lots of
teams use data and everyone of them probably has a laundry list of additions or
modifications they'd like to see implemented. However, there's usually not
enough capacity to accomplish them all and there needs to be some way of
prioritizing the work that needs to get done. Governance can help by providing a
process for vetting, assessing, and prioritizing which data projects are
undertaken, usually by rationalizing those projects against the overall business
priorities of the enterprise. Because data environments are constantly evolving,
there also needs to be some mechanism for letting the users of the data know
when new data is added. Or some change or improvement is made. Having a
well-structured data governance approach can facilitate communication about
data and make sure everyone is informed and aware of the changes.
d) Providing Information about the Data Environment

The last role that data governance plays is in providing information about
the data environment itself. There's a broad class of activities called metadata
management, which helps to keep track of metadata, or data about data. Given
that we've gone through all the trouble of creating standard definitions and
calculations, it's generally useful to formally document them and provide that
documentation to the enterprise. We also might want to provide information about
the lineage of data and metrics, which traces where data elements come from. Or
keep a history of changes that have been made to a data environment. All of
these would fall under metadata management. We also might want to provide
information about the quality of certain data domains or metrics. Governance
mechanisms can help serve as a clearing house for this type of information.
Metadata can speak to the what and where of the data environment, but it can
also indicate how good the information is. Likewise, governance can help keep
track of the who, including tracking who data stewards are and who may be
involved in other data governance functions. Users can consult this information to
determine who to contact with questions or concerns about the data.

3) In Data Governance, there are a few characteristics that are almost always present
in a successful program. So here is the common implementation of Data Governance.

The first is cross-functional representation. The whole point of data


governance is to get everyone on the same page. To do that, everyone needs to be
involved. The best governance structures have broad participation across technical and
nontechnical teams, usually via something like a data governance council that brings
those groups together and addresses governance issues.

The second, is an ongoing process and schedule. A data governance council


doesn't do much good if it never convenes, or doesn't convene often enough. Or if it
doesn't make any decisions, or if it has no mechanism to execute on decisions. A sound
data governance program provides the structure.
The third common element, is a set of defined roles. Someone needs to act as
the defacto leader of the program. This may be a Chair of the Governance Council or
other leader. The role of data stewards is important because some form of data
stewardship or ownership is critical to a successful governance program.

4) Data Governance is important to data analysts because without it, data


inconsistencies in different systems across an organization might not get resolved. For
example, customer names may be listed differently in sales, logistics and customer
service systems. That could complicate data integration efforts and create data integrity
issues that affect the accuracy of business intelligence, enterprise reporting and
analytics applications. To make it simple, Data Governance is important to make data
analysts’ work more convenient and easier.

Furthermore, with Data Governance, it can help you, as the data analyst to
rapidly learn about what's available, understand what's good and what's not, and to
keep abreast of new additions or changes to the data environment. With that being said,
this will help you produce the best insights you can and have confidence in your results.

You might also like