Developing a Data Governance Charter: A Step-by-Step Guide
Data governance is the process of managing, governing and controlling your data so that it can be accessed and used effectively. It has become more important as companies have started to recognise the value of their data. Data governance helps make sure that everyone within an organisation understands how they should access and use data in order to get the most out of it. You need a data governance framework if you want to better understand your data, keep it clean and secure, manage it more effectively – all while ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR
Overview
Data governance is a set of processes and policies that ensure the quality, security and integrity of your data. A data governance framework can help you ensure that your organisation follows best practices when it comes to managing information assets.
A data governance charter is a document that spells out how an organisation will manage its digital assets in accordance with its business goals and objectives. It provides a formal statement of commitment from senior leadership to support the implementation of processes needed to effectively govern digital assets across an enterprise or organisation. It also identifies who is responsible for implementing these processes, as well as their roles and responsibilities within them. Data governance charters typically include five components:
The purpose/mission statement - this defines what you're trying to achieve with respect to your digital assets (i.e., why do we need one?)
The vision statement - this communicates where you want this initiative taken over time (i.e., where do we want our organisation heading)
Key performance indicators - these are metrics used by senior management teams as benchmarks when evaluating how well they're meeting their goals during annual performance reviews (i.e., what are our successes thus far?)
Key success factors - these define key aspects necessary for success among members involved in implementing this new initiative; they may include things like policies around confidentiality agreements signed by those employees working on projects requiring access permissions into sensitive areas where private data could potentially be compromised if mishandled; costs associated with training staff members on best practices etcetera (i..e., how do we know if our efforts have paid off? What were some unforeseen obstacles along the way?)
A summary section explaining what each section means within context of overseeing digital assets at large scale organisations such as Google Incorporated."
The benefits of having a data governance charter
Provides a framework for decision making.
Helps you to measure the effectiveness of the framework.
Reduces risk of data loss.
Helps with talent management, as it provides a clear structure for different roles in your organisation. It also helps you to identify gaps and areas where new skills are needed so that you can plan ahead for them rather than being caught off guard when they happen.
Enables better data quality, as it gives clear guidelines on what needs to be done at each stage of the process, from defining requirements through design and implementation, testing and deployment – all the way through maintenance and support services
Steps for developing a data governance charter
Define objectives and scope
Identify major issues/prioritise them in order of importance and develop a plan to address them
Detail the roles and responsibilities involved in data governance, what they entail, how they will be organised, who is responsible for each role, etc.
Create guidelines for decision rights (who can make what decisions), rules (what constitutes acceptable behaviour), policies and procedures (how decisions are made).
Draw up a budget for resources needed to implement a data governance framework
Define objectives and scope
Before you start developing a Data Governance Charter, it's important to define the problem. To do this, you need to set objectives and scope for your project. Your objective is going to be what problem you're trying to solve with data governance—what do you want? What are the goals that other people don't have access to in their organisations? And then once you've defined those things, scope refers more specifically to how much time and effort it's going to take: How long will this project take? What kind of resources am I going to need? How many people could actually get involved in this process?
So when I'm doing this exercise with clients, one thing that we'll often do is talk about their goals for their organisation as a whole—for example, "We want our sales team members all working from the same version of Salesforce." That's an example of an objective-driven goal; we're saying that whatever solution we end up creating needs something like that built into it so everyone knows what they're supposed to use. And then scope would say something like "This is something we'd like within six months."
Identify major issues and develop a plan to address them
This step is crucial. You need to define the problem before you start on a solution, so that you can ensure that your plan of action will solve the right problem.
This process is much easier if you have clearly defined goals right from the beginning. It’s easy to get sidetracked when developing Data Governance Plans because there are so many things that need to be done and people often have different ideas about what they should include in their plans. In order for everyone on your team to be working towards the same goal(s), make sure everyone knows what those goals are and agree upon them as a team, before starting on any other projects or tasks.
Once you’ve set these initial goals, don’t worry about what other people's goals might be at this point; instead focus on how best to achieve yours! If there are other departments who want something else out of their Data Governance Plan than what was agreed upon within your department, talk with them about how their needs could fit into your own strategy—and vice versa—and figure out how both teams can benefit from each other's success stories later down this path!
Detail the roles and responsibilities involved in data governance
In this step, you'll outline the roles and responsibilities that will be required for your organisation to implement a data governance program. You'll also need to determine how much authority each role will have over different areas of governance; how much accountability each role will hold; and finally, what level of access should be afforded to each role.
Once you've defined these basics, move on to Step 3 where we'll explore the formalising process of creating policies that are consistent with the charter.
Create guidelines for decision rights, rules, policies and procedures
Define who can make decisions, what decisions they can make, and how they can make them. Who has the decision authority on a given data governance matter? What types of decisions (e.g., approving a request to add or delete data) are they allowed to decide? How will you communicate their decision-making powers?
Define rules, policies and procedures to enforce data governance. This is where you document your security protocols for protecting sensitive information like healthcare records or credit card numbers as it travels through your organisation's systems. For example, an employee might be required to log into a workstation using two-factor authentication before accessing sensitive information stored on that computer system—the first factor being something only he knows (his password), while the second factor could be something only she has with her at all times (her mobile phone).
Define the process for making decisions: If an employee wants permission from his supervisor to add new rows in an Excel spreadsheet containing customer contact details, how should this request be made? Should it follow a formalised process with multiple approvals along its path through different teams within IT operations before reaching someone who oversees all customer relations initiatives at his company? How long should each stage take so that everyone involved—from those requesting access right up until those granting it—have enough time between requests so as not cause delays which could negatively impact business operations; yet also does not allow too much lead time between when people need access versus when that access becomes available because this would lead them having no choice but wait until later rather than taking action now.
Draw up a budget for resources needed to implement data governance framework
To start, you need to develop a budget that covers the necessary resources required to implement your data governance framework. This could include staff training, software licenses or subscriptions, monitoring and reporting tools, or communication materials like newsletters and videos.
Be sure to take into account staffing needs as well as any other costs associated with creating an effective governance program.
Get approval for the charter from leadership and stakeholders
It’s important to get approval from leadership and stakeholders early in the process, so that they understand why you want to develop a data governance charter. Your boss is the first person you should approach, but don’t forget about the rest of your team and all of your other stakeholders as well. You need everyone on board with your plan because it will ultimately help them do their jobs better if they have access to clean data.
You may also need to get approval from senior management or even shareholders before moving forward with this initiative (if applicable). The more “buy-in” from these groups, the easier it will be for everyone else involved in data governance processes—even down through day-to-day activities like populating CRM fields or updating spreadsheets—to follow along with best practices for controlling sensitive information at all times by using those same standards consistently across departments throughout an organisation.
You need a data governance framework to better understand your data, keep it clean and secure, and manage it more effectively.
You need a data governance framework to better understand your data, keep it clean and secure, and manage it more effectively. Data governance is a set of policies, procedures and guidelines that define how data is managed throughout its lifecycle. It helps to ensure data quality, security and compliance with internal requirements as well as external regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA. A well-defined data governance framework can also be used to implement a consistent approach across various business units or departments in your organisation.
Data governance can be an overwhelming topic, but it doesn’t have to be. By taking a systematic approach and breaking down your charter into bite-sized pieces, you can create something that works for your organisation and makes data management more efficient. If you follow these steps carefully, you’ll find that developing a data governance charter isn’t so difficult after all.