How to get started with Data Governance

This is a question that is being asked by many at the moment. The term data governance still comes with the old stigma of control and costly and requiring teams of people. There are those that still believe that going in under the radar and growing once value is shown is a way to start. Then there are those that think we should utilise tools to help with data governance to enable speed of adoption. Myself I think considering business value must be the place to start to have great data and business buy in. After all why do we want to collect the data in the first place. So don't talk about governance but about understanding that data, data erudition, and knowing your current data quality state.  Once the business is in place, embed the process for each use case.

Data governance needs to be simple clear messaging to the business based on an agile method. The benefits of each use case must be measurable and bring value. To be successful it relies on cross team communication and diversity in views. That strong cross functional collaboration, ethical understanding which is sustainable. Data governance underpins all data tasks.

Start with an agenda item in an existing meeting and the program will grow over time. 

Don't follow a framework as every business is different but pull from DAMA (body of knowledge) and CDMC (playbook of best practice )

Start with a data readiness assessment with four areas that looks at the current usage, data quality, how data is managed and business readiness.

Think about the two core questions that are trying to be solved are 

1.             what business problem are you trying to solve

2.             What tooling would help solve the business problem

Start small and create an iterative roadmap based on business value

Reading 

A Guide to Data Governance – Microsoft   https://bit.ly/3hDe5Sn

Chief Data Officer (CDO) Seat at the Cloud Table    https://bit.ly/375px7e

Get started with Azure Purview   aka.ms/azurepurview/getstarted

Microsoft Learn: introduction to Azure Purview   aka.ms/intro-to-azure-purview

Azure Purview Documentation   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/purview/

Azure Purview Readiness   Checklist  https://bit.ly/3HIytMy