Unless your risk tolerance is a lot higher than most, your organization likely has some kind of data governance plan already in place. Maybe it’s a policy that sits in a three-ring binder somewhere and no one ever looks at it, but you probably have one. 

Hopefully, it’s a policy and plan of action that at least helps you avoid big risks by controlling access to data, keeping it secure, and delineating the responsibilities surrounding your care and use of that data. Is it just business data, like sales numbers and inventories? Or is it so-called “personal data” to which privacy and security laws might apply? 

Even better would be if your data governance plans and policies actually made the data readily available for those who might need it, made sure it was as accurate as possible, and gave users an indication of what permissions were attached to that data so they could be creative and help drive revenue. Does a specific law govern the use of this data? Is the data you want easy to find? Can you rely on the data to be accurate? 

If you can’t answer these questions confidently, or if these questions send you into a bit of panic, you need to modernize your data governance plan. Maybe you even need to start from scratch, depending on the last time your organization went through the exercise.

Good Data Governance Plans Are Living Documents

Everyone knows data is being created and gathered faster than ever. The last time you looked at data governance in your organization may have been before cloud applications were widely adopted, or before various important laws were put into place (does “GDPR” or “CCPA” ring a bell?), or before various helpful pieces of data management software existed. The nature of modern technological advancement means plans that looked great just a short time ago might now be hopelessly obsolete. 

Good data governance plans are living documents, updated frequently to account for changes in technology, law, and organizational risk tolerance and business plan. If that doesn’t sound like your organization’s data governance plan, no worries — it’s never too late to modernize and get your organization on the right path. 

Here at Divebell, data governance is in our DNA. We are keenly aware of data’s importance to an organization, both as a source of potential and a source of risk. We have designed Divebell to be a massive force multiplier, helping your team understand your data with deep automation that should dovetail nicely with any modern data governance program. 

In order to get your thoughts moving about the quality of your plan and whether it meets modern benchmarks and best practices, we’ve put together an e-book on what a modern data governance program looks like and how to get started in creating one for your organization. In some ways, the tenets are pretty basic: Do you know what data you have and where it lives? Do you have rules surrounding what you’re allowed to do with the data you have? Do you have help in disseminating those rules and making sure they are followed?

If you can’t answer “yes” to those questions, it’s time to get cracking on modernizing your data governance. Download our ebook, “Modern Data Governance: The three steps to a scalable and effective data governance program,” and get started.