5 Tips for Building an Effective Data Governance Framework

1. Examine the Data Assets within the organization?

To ensure that your organization maximizes data, you have to know how to collect, store, use, and, even know how to dispose of the data once it has fulfilled its intended purpose. Diagnosing the data assets within the organization can be done by first having an inventory of all the data that your organization is interacting with and also identifying the sources of the data.?

2. Have a common data governance strategy?

For one to have an effective data governance framework, it is important for all departments to speak the same language on matters of data. An organization should conduct regular interviews and monitoring of the different departments to better understand the current data situation and assess any risks that may be surrounding the organizational data. It should also hold workshops and training sessions that will train the staff on how to handle data.?

3. Choose a data governance strategy that is compatible with your structure?

What will work for one organization will not necessarily work for another. Therefore, when embracing a data governance framework, you should avoid adopting one that may stretch your organization negatively be it financially or even in terms of manpower. Having an expensive strategy will automatically jeopardize your compliance journey and you may end up having a non-effective data governance framework?

4. Have a Team??

It is evident that organizations tend to leave matters pertaining to data to the IT department. This is very wrong as the IT people will focus on the technical part of data and overlook the theoretical part. There should be a team that solely handles everything about data from the time it is collected to the time it is being disposed of. An organization can hire a Chief Data Officer or a Data Protection Officer who will oversee all data-related activities and ensures that the organization is compliant with the Data Protection Act.?

5. Democratize the use of data internally

Democratizing the use of data is the process of making data accessible to as many people as possible by adopting a conducive data culture. This can be done by:?

? Indicating where data is located and how to access it

? Highlighting the purpose of data collection?

? Making it known to all employees about all the data that is being handled in the organization.