Data Governance Ownership Procedure Template| Data Governance Framework

Data Governance Ownership Procedure Template's purpose is to appoint and assign the roles and ownership in order to have efficient and regulatory-complaint data governance practices in the company. It also provides a framework that ensures data integrity and compliance with regulations while enabling us to achieve goal of uninterrupted business operations. These ownership procedures define company's functions in data governance so that one can successfully carry out this practice. Without an effective data governance, company may face the risks like:

• Data inconsistencies which lead to discrepancies in reporting and poor decision-making.
  
  
• Poor data quality which leads to ineffective data analysis and forecasting.
  
  
• Operational inefficiencies which lead to duplication in business tasks and delays in resolution of data-related issues. 
  
  
• There are higher costs due to inefficiencies in managing storage which leads to financial loss 
  
  
• Data governance is one of the structured disciplines to manage, secure, monitor, improve, and protect organization’s data.
  
  
• The data governance system helps us protect business operations and follows important rules to keep data safe.
  

Setting Responsibilities and Duties in Data Governance

As part of data governance activities, the assignment of roles and responsibilities will be detailed as follows: 

Board of Directors

Within institution, the Board of Directors has the ultimate responsibility in ensuring that the principles stated in the data governance policy are indeed put into practice. The responsibilities of Board of Directors will include: 

• Establish a data governance council to spearhead data governance activities. 
  
  
• Assess and authorize the organization's data governance framework and associated policies and procedures (minimum once a year). 
  
  
• Ensure that data-related risks are managed and reported in accordance with the policy, procedures, and relevant legislation. 
  
  
• Monitor the activities of the Data Governance Council and assess the extent to which the council has managed data-related risks and compliance with the law.
  

Executive Management (Committee)

The executive management team at organization includes the positions of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) along with CIO (Chief Information Officer), CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) and CDO (Chief Data Officer), CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and CRO (Chief Risk Officer). The Executive Management Committee gathers together executive staff to talk about data governance matters during their scheduled sessions. The Executive Management (Committee) possesses the following duties:

• The Executive Management team demonstrates leadership to support the data governance strategy and development framework by obtaining necessary resources.
  
  
• Ensure alignment of data governance strategy with business strategy. 
  
  
• Insufficient delegation of operational tasks (CDO and data stewards' appointment) will result in unsuccessful implementation.
  
  
• The Executive Management (Committee) must track data governance performance through measurable KPIs for reporting purposes to the board.

Data Governance Council

The team at organization named data governance council includes representatives from executive management together with personnel from IT and business line management along with the Chief Data Officer role. Data Governance Council maintains responsibility to execute strategies from data governance. The Data Governance Council must fulfill the following duties:

• Develop policies, standards, processes and procedures for an effective data management.
  
  
• The council must perform overall strategic plan execution and monitoring for data governance development. 
  
  
• The council provides resolution channels for data issues which it oversees to monitor the resolution activities.
  
  
• Monitor adherence to data policies, procedures, standards, and regulatory requirements.
  
  
• Develop guidelines for data classification. 
  
  
• The organization should define all principles relating to data security combined with standards and data sharing policies.
  

Chief Data Officer (CDO)

Chief Data Officer plays an essential role defining how all other data governance responsibilities and roles should be performed.  The main responsibilities of Chief Data Officer encompass the following duties:

• Setting the enterprise/line of business data strategy together with the data governance program forms part of the CDO's responsibilities.
  
  
• Define organization's vision and set objectives, priorities and scope for the data management program.
  
  
• The executive has primary responsibility to create standards and processes which address all data management areas.
  
  
• Prepare and present materials in support of Data Governance Council, Executive Management (Committee), and Board of Directors.
  
  
• Response to ensure relevant stakeholders accept and implement company’s data management principles along with their objectives.
  
  
• The organization must specify the data domains which will be included in its data management program.
  
  
• The organization should establish methods for governing model supervision within its structure.
  
  
• Data management funding structures and execution procedures within the organization need to be established by the organization.
  
  
• Progress monitoring and benchmarking methods together with data management measurement mechanisms must be defined.
  

Chief Data Officer (CDO) 

The role of a Chief Data Officer includes creating the organization’s data strategy and governance program while also overseeing all data programs for the enterprise and/or line of business. The responsibilities of Chief Data Officer will include: 

• Responsible for establishing the enterprise/line of business data strategy and data governance program.
    
• Define organization’s vision, objectives, priorities, and scope for the data management program.
    
• Accountable for setting policies, standards, and processes for all areas of data management.
  
  
• Prepare and support materials to be presented to Data Governance Council and Executive Management/Committee/Board of Directors.
    
• Accountable and responsible for ensuring all relevant stakeholders are fully engaged in and accept the principles and objectives of company’s data management strategy.
    
• Define the data domains included in the Organizational Unit’s data management program.  
• Define the supervision arrangements for the governance model within the organization.
    
• Define how data management funding and execution will be achieved within the organization.
    
• Define how data management performance will be evaluated against defined objectives, and how progress will be tracked and benchmarked.

Data Stewards

Organization depends on Data Stewards who maintain full responsibility for data governance tasks throughout a business unit.  Relevant data management duties will be assigned by Data Stewards to IT personnel who function as Data Custodians. The principal duties of Data Stewards consist of:

• Data Stewards must identify and assign the required technology management duties to Data Custodians for performing their responsibilities.
  
  
• The organization will establish master data elements through definition.
  
  
• The team must create KPIs which measure how well data quality performs. 
  
  
• The data quality assessment includes both implementation and tracking of associated KPIs for reporting purposes.
   
• The Data Owner and Data Governance Council must receive data quality issues through communication from Data Stewards.
  
  
• Business definitions should be published as well as managed through a central data dictionary.

Data Users

End users have the role of data users who apply data processing to accomplish tasks defined in their job descriptions. Data Users undertake a set of principal requirements which consist of:

• The Data Users must implement all policies and procedures provided by their assigned Data Steward.
  
  
• Data Users must follow organizational rules that apply to data use regulations together with organizational standards and procedures. They must also obey defined policy requirements.
  
  
• Use organizational data only as and when needed during employment.
  
  
• Data Users must implement the security measures defined by their corresponding Data Steward for protecting sensitive information.
  
  
• The tasks of data users involve validating the accuracy and timely delivery of material data that belongs to their field.
  
  
• Report any unauthorized access, data misuse, or data quality issues to Information Security department and/or to the appropriate Data Steward for remediation.
  

Summary

The blogs covers about clearly defines responsibilities and establishing ownership with assigned duties to ensure accountability, consistency and aligned with organization goals or objectives.