A Data Quality program is more effective when part of a data governance program. Often data quality issues are the reason for establishing enterprise-wide data governance. Incorporating data quality efforts into the overall governance effort enables the Data Quality program team to work with a range of stakeholders and enablers:
- Risk and security personnel who can help identify data-related organizational vulnerabilities
- Business process engineering and training staff who can help teams implement process improvements
- Business and operational data stewards, and data owners who can identify critical data, define standards and quality expectations, and prioritize remediation of data issues
A Governance Organization can accelerate the work of a Data Quality program by:
- Setting priorities
- Identifying and coordinating access to those who should be involved in various data quality-related decisions and activities
- Developing and maintaining standards for data quality
- Reporting relevant measurements of enterprise-wide data quality
- Providing guidance that facilitates staff involvement
- Establishing communications mechanisms for knowledge sharing
- Developing and applying data quality and compliance policies
- Monitoring and reporting on performance
- Sharing data quality inspection results to build awareness, identify opportunities for improvements, and build consensus for improvements
- Resolving variations and conflicts; providing direction
