Who owns the data and why does that matter?

- Data governance doesn't necessarily have to incur a lot of financial cost, particularly in requiring a whole bunch of new expensive software tools. While some software will likely be required, where most overhead is felt is with the introduction of new processes and responsibilities for staff. If an organization has determined that there's a role for quality data governance, then it will need to determine which stakeholders will need to be engaged and how each of them will be involved. In most organizations, it's customary to assign specific people to own processes and deliverables. For example, a human resources director will be accountable for recruitment, a facilities manager for real estate needs, and a chief financial officer for financial activities. But when it comes to data, there can be huge gaps in ownership of related processes and for accountability of data sets. This remains common and is a glaring weakness in many organizations. Owning data doesn't mean it belongs to somebody, ownership and accountability are about such things as data quality, integrity, availability, security, and compliance. Data owners must care and manage data in each of those areas and more. Since data governance is an enterprise concern, data owners are accountable to an authority that has an enterprise perspective. With data flowing between systems internally and externally, a single data owner has insufficient enterprise visibility. To solve this, the organization must consider data stewards. A data steward can be a single individual or a team of people. The data steward is the enterprise authority. It's the individual or team ultimately responsible for data governance. They create the rules and processes for governing data and anticipate the data owners will follow those rules and processes. Data stewards are existing members of an organization. They might be people who by the nature of their skills are well-suited to participate in a data oversight capacity. Data stewards usually conduct this role for just a few hours a month and spend the rest of their time in their normal day jobs. The data steward function is often called the data governance board, the data stewardship council, or the data governance office. In medium to large enterprises, these groups are made up of several data stewards that represent the entirety of the organization. To maintain independence, data stewards are typically different people than data owners. The group's activities include agreeing on data policy and procedures, resolving data challenges, reviewing concerns, and making strategic decisions regarding the management of data in the enterprise. Data stewards use information provided by data owners and managers and a whole range of stakeholders in order to diligently conduct their work. The scope of responsibilities for data owners and data stewards is an important organizational decision. It should be determined within each organization based on such dependencies as the volume, variety, and value of data, business maturity, scale, compliance, and industry requirements.