The Role of Data Governance in an Organization - Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets - page 13

analysis to another and naming dissimilar data with different names pro-
motes transparency and consistency in analyses both individually and
as a whole. Knowing the audience, context, and purpose of data collec-
tion leads to good data stewardship. By implementing standards and data
governance processes, organizations are able to reduce potential risk of
accepting and analyzing poor quality data, and the costs of rework and
duplicate data.
DATA GOVERNANCE AND MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT
Organizations need governance for many reasons. Data governance func-
tion permeates major areas of an organization by providing the structure
for the creation, deletion, approval, and distribution rights of corporate
information. It provides the decision rights to determine the direction
of data management efforts, the subject areas, sources of data, targets of
data, and business rules involved. It is involved in deciding the account-
abilities and responsibilities in the organization for creating, approving,
enforcing, and monitoring data. Data governance determines the work-
flow of data and these are implemented through the master data manage-
ment workflow by data stewards. Often MDM is the means of effective
implementation of data governance in a data warehouse or business
intelligence project. Without data governance, MDM is reduced to a data
integration project.
MDM is critical to achieving effective information governance. Automat-
ing currently existing practices does not result in adequate data governance.
Translating poor practices to business rules would not create the real ben-
efits of a data governance program. Executive involvement in analyzing and
refining current practices and processes with participation from all stake-
holders, both current business users and users from yet to be scoped busi-
ness areas, would lead to improved processes and MDM workflow.
MANAGING RISK WITH DATA GOVERNANCE
The transformation of data into electronic format, the rising value of data
to businesses, and the industry's heightened concern about privacy have