In my previous Industry Insight, I discussed the habits for effective data governance in view of the fact that data governance has not been properly entrenched in South African businesses. This has left them suffering the maladies of unsuccessfully mapping their governance frameworks back to their business processes and ICT project life cycles.
What companies need are the right people, in the right roles, employing the right skills, and to know how best to put them to use for immediate and future operational gains.
Mapping a data governance framework back to project life cycles and processes, to have the ability to implement it and make it approachable and applicable, requires people proficient in both technology and business. They must have specific roles with a mandate to focus on various aspects of data and information resources across the business in their respective domains, which include projects and development, operations, change management and business process management.
The following roles are specifically notable:
Data stewards: These are the caretakers of the enterprise data and information assets, and they are accountable to a degree for the management of the assets. Data stewards ensure the quality, accuracy and security of data and information. Data stewards do not own the data.
Business analysts: Responsible for defining data, information and functional requirements for ICT systems or business applications based on the needs of the business.
Business users: People who are the users or consumers of data and information in the organisation. They work with business analysts to define the requirements for data and information produced, processed and consumed by the organisation.
Data analysts: Responsible for assessing data and information resources and prescribing definitions or specifications that would result in the economy of managing and usage of data and information. These analysts ensure quality processes and structures, implementing quality rules as defined by business analysts, and reconciling any quality issues. They work closely with the owners of data and information, and with stewards and project leads to resolve data issues.
System or integration developers and administrators: Responsible for managing data and information integration processes and technology with the objective of achieving lean integration, ie, data and process economy.
System and information security experts: Responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining appropriate security policies and measures to support the security and privacy requirements of the governance framework.
Executive management: Provide the resources and funding, and support the organisation's governance programmes.
Governance officers: They are responsible for the co-ordination of organisational governance education and enforcement of compliance. They manage daily governance issues and the operation of the governance office, which is required to run and co-ordinate the governance programme. They act as devil's advocates on new development projects and changes to existing systems, ensuring adherence to data and information principles, standards and requirements.
Governance structures
Supporting and driving data and information governance in the organisation ideally requires two governance structures comprising various combinations of the roles mentioned above.
These are:
The data governance council (DGC): This council or forum is made up of representatives from the business and the governance office, who jointly define governance strategies, policies, processes, standards and accountability models. They assist with project co-ordination with regard to governance-related activities for the business. These roles typically include:
o Chairperson (an executive or senior head responsible for governance oversight);
o CIO (who will represent ICT and the council at other bodies of governance and management forums);
o Risk and compliance or legal officer;
o Information security officer;
o Business representative and subject-matter expert; and
o Working group or one or more SME representatives, as and when required.
The data governance organisation (DGO): This unit makes the data or information governance operational through its daily activities and ensures business does likewise. How the DGO is implemented differs from one organisation to the next.
One option is to establish a formal governance division, department or office in the organisation with its own organogram. A dedicated team of resources is assigned to the division and all operational governance is the responsibility of the office.
Another option is to create a hybrid organisation where there is a handful of permanent staffing for the DGO responsible for ensuring adherence to governance principles in all technical and non-technical data-related projects; the rest of the DGO participates in or contributes to the organisation as their projects necessitate.
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