There’s a good quantity of high-level recommendation on the web about implementing information governance, which implies the practices a company makes use of to make sure its information is on the market, usable, full, and safe.
However what you gained’t discover, not less than not in abundance, is steering about what not to do when establishing an information governance follow. That’s unlucky, as a result of there are a lot of missteps that organizations are inclined to make when attempting to ascertain information governance. Avoiding them is essential if you wish to construct an information governance technique that truly means that you can govern your information – versus speaking about governing your information with out actually establishing efficient governance controls and processes.
To that finish, right here’s a take a look at information governance errors to keep away from, which draw on my work serving to organizations chart efficient information governance and administration methods.
Mistake 1: Treating Knowledge Governance as a Know-how Drawback Alone
In all probability the largest mistake I see firms make when approaching information governance is assuming that they’ll merely buy expertise to unravel their information governance wants.
The fact is that information governance is basically a follow, not a expertise you should buy. To make sure, there are nice information governance instruments that may allow you to with duties like discovering your information, enhancing its high quality, and defending it from dangers. However these instruments solely ship worth if you happen to outline clear information governance aims, after which decide which instruments you’ll want to realize them.
In different phrases, whereas expertise is a part of the information governance equation, it’s just one half – and it’s not an important one. It is advisable decide which information governance practices your corporation requires earlier than you may deploy instruments to assist them. Tooling is solely an enabler of practices, not the practices themselves.
Mistake 2: Limiting Knowledge Entry in Methods That Disrupt Productiveness
As a result of a part of the aim of information governance is to mitigate information safety dangers, minimizing who can entry information could appear to be one approach to obtain information governance. The much less entry folks have, the decrease your dangers.
That is true to the extent that pointless entry rights to information belongings needs to be revoked. Nevertheless, this follow turns into a mistake when it blocks entry to information that a few of your customers or workers legitimately require. Knowledge safety ought to by no means come on the expense of information usability and availability – that are, in spite of everything, equally vital elements of information governance.
Mistake 3: Not Understanding Day-to-Day Knowledge Necessities
At many firms, the individuals who truly use information each day are sometimes not on the middle of conversations surrounding information governance insurance policies. The result’s insurance policies that replicate what managers assume workers do with information as a substitute of what they really do.
That is dangerous not simply because it could actually prohibit workers’ entry to information. Even worse, it could actually breed conditions the place workers deploy unofficial instruments to work with information with out the group’s data, resulting in shadow IT.
The purpose right here is that information governance insurance policies should align with what customers really want, lest customers take it upon themselves to satisfy their information necessities utilizing instruments and processes of their very own selecting.
Mistake 4: Treating Knowledge Governance as a Reactive Course of
The purpose of an information governance program shouldn’t be merely to determine and mitigate information availability, high quality, and safety points. It must also be to realize these objectives as effectively as doable – which is why information governance should be a proactive follow.
For instance, slightly than ready till information processing is full to verify for information high quality points, it is best to construct exams into your pipelines that provide you with a warning proactively to issues. In any other case, you find yourself having to rebuild the complete pipeline and reprocess your information, whereas you might have solved the problem with much less effort and time if you happen to’d caught it earlier.
Conclusion: A Higher Method to Knowledge Governance
An information governance program that delivers actual worth requires extra than simply instruments, information entry restrictions, and periodic information high quality checks. Its most vital parts are actionable insurance policies and practices that align with the best way all stakeholders truly use information. Understanding that is what differentiates companies with an efficient information governance operation from ones that speak about information governance however do little in follow to allow it.
