Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
the job done. The people in the organization who have already been looking
at integration of data from multiple systems and taking an enterprise view
of the business world are indeed the members of the data warehouse team.
The neccessary business knowledge often resides within this team. Depending
upon the maturity of the data warehouse environment, your company may
have the beginnings of the master reference data needed for analysis. This
team can also be helpful in recruiting members from the business community
and the operational systems teams.
Ultimately, a team that can represent the requirements for core reference
data across the enterprise is needed to successfully implement a master data
management program. A core part of this team will also be involved in
data governance, which, again, requires a strong partnership between busi-
ness and IT.
Data Governance
Recall from earlier in the chapter that data governance initiatives improve
data quality by assigning a team to be responsible for the data's accuracy,
accessibility, consistency, and completeness, among other metrics. This team
usually consists of executive leadership, project management, line-of-business
managers, and data stewards.
Data governance is not a project but a cultural shift. As you can see from the
roles listed above, in order for data governance to be successful, there must
be a strong commitment and partnership between business and IT. At a high
level, data governance is a set of business processes and procedures needed
to ensure that the data is captured accurately and processed appropriately.
Without a strong data governance initiative it is difficult for an organization
to truly view its data as a corporate asset.
Data Ownership
Several similar terms are used for the ideas presented in this discussion: data
ownership, data stewardship, and data custodianship. They all define the
responsibility of making decisions about how to define, process, and handle
data. Your organization should pick the one that resonates best with your
people.
Historically, the responsibility for making these decisions about how to
process and handle data has often defaulted to the systems professionals who
are developing or maintaining the application system. This is not usually a
conscious decision, but just how things have fallen into place over the years.
Too often the business community does not understand what data ownership
is and how it impacts them, therefore, the business typically has not stepped
