itsual Data Governance
Overview
Data governance is the system of decision rights and accountabilities for data assets. It answers who decides standards, who owns quality, and how conflicts are resolved.
When to Use
- Standing up or maturing a governance program
- Assigning data domain owners and stewards
- Resolving conflicting metrics or access rules
- Aligning data use with privacy and regulatory obligations
Core Practices
- Define governance scope by data domains (customer, product, finance, etc.)
- Assign owners (accountability) and stewards (day-to-day care)
- Set policies for quality, access, retention, and acceptable use
- Create decision forums for standards and exceptions
- Tie governance to real pain (conflicting numbers, audit findings, blocked projects)
- Measure adoption: owned domains, certified datasets, issue closure rates
Principles
- Governance without business ownership becomes bureaucracy
- Start with critical domains, not a universal catalog fantasy
- Policies must be enforceable in tools and processes
- Trust is the product; paperwork is only a means
Verification
- Critical domains have named owners
- Decision rights for standards are clear
- Policies connect to operational controls