HOW TO BECOME A

DATA
GOVERNANCE
EXPERT
You’re Already a Data Expert.
You’ve been working with enterprise data
for years.
You’ve seen the good, the bad, and the
downright ugly. And you’ve watched the
business of data change.
 The End-Game
is No Longer About
a Better Data Warehouse
It’s about the value that data can
deliver to the business. And for
that data to mean something,
it needs to be consumable by
everybody in the organization, not
just the data whizzes.
Today, more and more businesses want
to put better data into the hands of the
people who need it to do their jobs.
That means building processes that
define who owns what data, how it
can be used, and helping the people
who use that data every day, find it,
understand it, and trust it.
THAT’S DATA GOVERNANCE
And it’s a skill set that’s taking off.
 Like life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
We believe that well-governed data
is a fundamental right for
every data citizen.
Of course, you might have more
practical reasons for wanting to be
a data governance expert.
 Maybe you’ve just been asked to lead Maybe you’re looking for a new job
the charge on data governance at your or you’re thinking about your next
company. (Yay!) promotion. (Go for it!)

Maybe your boss just asked you to figure Or maybe you work in one of many
out a way to tame the data chaos at your industries where regulatory scrutiny
organization. (Yikes!) demands better control of data. BCBS
239, CCAR, Solvency II, GDPR, HIPAA,
MACRA, CMS Star Ratings. (Do any of
these ring a bell?)
Or you might be thinking hard
about the big issues.
70% of business analysts spend their time
looking for data.
Big data has big potential. But finding the right
information to extract meaning from all those data
sets hasn’t been easy.
Your business just initiated a new Master
Data Management project, but it lacks cross-
organizational collaboration and stewardship.
 Highly paid professionals continue
engaging in data brawls where they spend
hours arguing about the meaning and
quality of data.
With little cooperation from key
stakeholders, the last BI project you tried
to launch never got off the ground.
But why be an expert?
While business trends rise and fall, we’ve seen consistent
markers that indicate data governance is no longer a “nice
to have” but rather a business imperative.
Data governance can help analysts find the
data that matters—fast
Data governance can help make big
data meaningful
Data governance provides a framework
for collaboration
Data governance makes data lineage,
ownership, and stewardship clear
Data governance makes data users feel confident about
where the data is coming from and what it’s saying
 Trend.

The Rise of the

Chief Data Officer
The amount of data available to us
every day is only going to grow.
To get ahead of the data tsunami,
organizations are adding new roles
to their org charts. Authority over
data is shifting (rightly) to the Chief
Data Officer, who is tasked with
transforming data into strategic
business assets. Her first order of
business? Mastering the data.
 Trend.
Regulatory oversight
Highly regulated industries like financial services
and healthcare are being asked to respond more
quickly and transparently to requests for information
or matters requiring attention. Regulations like GDPR
have had a significant impact on virtually every
industry around the globe. Organizations with well-
governed data are better able to mitigate risk and
avoid steep penalties for non-compliance.
 Trend.

Business intelligence that delivers

Companies no longer simply talk about being
“data driven” and have been actively putting
practices and processes in motion. For BI
projects to be effective, business users will
need to be able to find the data they need to
drive value. Data governance will be the key to
putting data to work across the organization.
 Data governance is all
about finding, understanding,
and trusting data.
And being a data governance expert
means being passionate about people,
processes, and technology.

Because data governance is about

more than data. It’s about getting that
data into the hands of every
data citizen — the people on the
front lines who are putting it to work.
What Every Data Governance Expert Knows
A data governance
expert understands
people own the data.
Data governance, perhaps more than most
data initiatives, requires collaboration to be
successful. And getting people to collaborate is
harder than you might think. That’s not because
people don’t want to collaborate. But when
data is handled badly, reputations suffer. And
when reputations suffer, behaviors change —
usually for the worst.
 Putting it into practice
First, recognize that data is about more
than records, fields, and tables. Good data
needs good owners. And good owners
take responsibility for their data’s quality,
access, and management.
 Second, learn how to spot the good
data citizens who will be good
stewards of their data. They’ll likely be
subject matter experts with business
expertise and a passion for details.
They’re the “go to” people in your
organization — the ones who always
know where the data lives and what it
means. And that exposure has made
them great data diplomats.

Recruit them to serve as members of

your data governance team. Ask them
what matters to their business unit.
Learn how changes will affect those
business units and incorporate that
knowledge into any processes you build.
 Guess what?
You’ve just taken the first step
to creating a nascent data
governance council, identifying
how your data governance ideas
might impact business practices,
and implementing change
management policies that will
promote collaboration and trust.
Well done!
A data governance expert understands
that the business owns the process.
Data experts don’t just involve stakeholders
across the business. They put the business
in the driver’s seat. Because the goal of
data governance isn’t just pristine data —
it’s helping people use data confidently to
pursue business goals.
Putting it into practice
First, recognize that there’s a disconnect
between IT and the business. Business
users value data for what it can do. IT
views all data as equal. Business users
get frustrated by data couched in technical
terms they don’t understand. IT gets
frustrated when no one uses the massive
data stores they’ve sweated to implement.
Second, articulate the value of data governance to
business users—data governance will make data
easier to find, understand, and trust. Ask business
users to prioritize the information they need and
to identify the people who can have access to it
(and under what circumstances). That allows IT to
focus on those critical data elements first, making
them easier for business users to find.

Break down those silos!

Third, take small steps. Tackle a data
management issue or a data sharing
agreement. Focus your resources
and energy.
Once you’ve demonstrated value, the
business will be hungry for more.
Fourth, expand your efforts. Look
at other data projects and working
groups. Get them to identify their
pain points. What’s stopping
them from being successful?
Demonstrate how a governance
solution can help.
Wash, rinse, and repeat this
process until it becomes
business as usual.
A data governance expert understands that
technology should be strategic.
 It’s not enough to simply store
your data all in one place.
That logic has been driving
data warehouse projects for
over a decade and it’s an
approach that’s largely failed.
We know that data lives in
multiple systems across the
organization and that’s not likely
to change. Nor should it. Rather,
to be useful, data, along with
data initiatives and projects,
needs to be well-governed.
And ultimately your complete
data ecosystem should be
transparent across every
department and business unit.
Putting it into practice
First, acknowledge that, as a data
governance expert, you’re no longer
managing a departmental project,
but an enterprise-wide initiative.
Whether you’re a decision maker
or an influencer, once you take
on data governance, your field of
responsibility is broader. Own it.
Second, implement a system of
record that’s about more than data
elements. For data governance to
work, your data system of record
needs to support processes—things
like requesting access to data,
approving data, or making changes to
data. A system of record should also
help business users identify and fix
bad data and inform people when a
change has been made.
Third, create a data catalog
that organizes useful
collections of data across
systems, organizations, or
geographies. Ideally, the
data catalog should point
business users to useful
datasets that have already
been created, speeding
discovery. And if data users
can augment those data
sets with new information?
Even better.
A data governance expert is always learning.
The world of data governance will
only keep growing as businesses
worldwide recognize that the
strategic use of data can set them
apart. To be effective, the data
governance expert should be able
to master multiple disciplines: IT,
business management, and more.
How do you keep up?
Putting it into practice
First, stay current in your industry. Learn
broadly about business drivers, challenges,
and opportunities. Talk to experts across your
organization about your company’s potential and
how to reach it. Become familiar with industry
publications, in the world of IT and beyond.
Some good data governance blogs and
resources to track include:
• The Collibra blog: where CDOs, data
stewards, and all data citizens go to learn
about true data governance
• DAMA International: The Global Data
Management Community
• DMBOK: the DAMA Guide to the Data
Management Body of Knowledge
• Dataversity: the “Real-World Data
Governance” series with Bob Seiner
• Enterprise Data Management Council:
particularly the DCAM Foundations
 Second, participate in online user
communities and attend conferences.
The annual Collibra Data Citizens
Conference is quickly becoming a go-
to event for those in the know. And
events like DGIQ (Data Governance &
Information Quality) offer an annual
conference covering topics like
getting started, data stewardship,
agile data governance, and more.
Collibra Community is a vibrant online
community and knowledge
repository that provides valuable
information and data governance
resources. And the Data Governance
Institute provides vendor-neutral best
practices and guidance.
Finally, take classes, attend
boot camps, get certified.
Yes, it takes time and commitment,
but classes give you a leg up on the
competition and having a credential
can boost your earning potential.
At Collibra University, hundreds
of active users are completing
thousands of courses every month.
Becoming a data governance
expert takes time, dedication,
and smarts. But most of all, it
requires a willingness to engage
with every kind of data citizen:
those committed to uncovering
new insights and moving their
organizations forward and those
who just want to finish their projects
on time.It’s up to you to make the
world of data a better place.

Be the data governance

expert that the world needs.
©2019 Collibra

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