Data Governance

Data Governance (DG) is an essential component of sustainable Data Quality Management (DQM). DG and DQM, together with Data Integration (DI), are known as the basic pillars of Master Data Management (MDM).

The optimal strategy for DG is an ongoing enterprise-wide organizational process which defines, executes and enforces data quality policy. A DG-driven program for sustainable DQM and/or MDM covers processes, organization and tools, engages all system representatives (beyond a single database or system view) and spreads across all business lines, departments, projects and initiatives (beyond a single business unit). DG processes ensure consistency, accuracy, stewardship and accountability of data in the enterprise, enabling organizations to eliminate endless debates about "whose data is right." A DG program typically helps to break down operational barriers, enabling greater enterprise agility and simplifying data integration and consolidation activities.

An advanced DG program and its policies affect five key areas:

• Data architecture (and its relation to overall IS/ICT architecture)
• Data integration
• Metadata management
• DQM
• MDM

Besides policies and processes, DG defines and establishes its own organizational structure, as shown in the diagram.

The major roles encompass a DG Sponsor, DG Steering Committee, DQ Manager, Data Stewards, Data Owners, Data Beneficiaries, among others.

Last but not least is DG performance measurement which breaks down into sets of KPIs for evaluation of processes and roles performance along with permanent Data Quality Assessment (DQA) which measures ongoing data quality improvement of all business critical data.

Ataccama tools play a key role not only in DQA and Data Profiling (Data Quality Analyzer), DQM (Data Quality Center) and MDM (Master Data Center), but strongly support specific DG processes via Ataccama DG Portal, which helps data stewardship processes as well as accommodating KPI definition and reporting needs via Ataccama DQ Dashboard.