It won’t surprise you to learn that I sometimes find myself writing a data governance policy for my clients. Sometimes my clients assume that I will just take a previous policy I've written and tweak it for them. However, this really wouldn't be very helpful for the new client, as it wouldn't be designed to meet their needs!
As with all things data governance, I don't think that there is such a thing as a standard approach, and there certainly is not one for a data governance policy. If there is no such thing as a standard data governance framework, why would you think that a policy written for another organization would work for you?
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t realise this and I’m often asked if I would share a template, or an example for data governance policy that they can copy.
For a policy to be really useful (i.e. help you implement Data Governance successfully) it needs to be written with your organisation in mind, and consider the following:
· What is the scope of your data governance programme?
· What is it that your organization is going to do to manage its data better?
· What roles and responsibilities are you going to have to manage your data better?
· What kind of processes are you going to implement as a result of having data governance?
Now, the answers to these questions will not be the same for all companies and I can honestly say that every organization I have ever worked with has been unique in its approach to data governance.
I admit sometimes the differences are subtle, but for a policy to be valuable, these subtleties really do need to be addressed.
If you are just starting to draft a data governance policy, then I recommend that you take the following approach:
Assemble key senior stakeholders in a room together and get them to tell you what principles they want included in the policy.
