Data Governance, Stewardship and Management

Data governance, stewardship and management are more often than not mentioned in the same breath but are all three the same? If not, what is the difference between the three? How to determine what function belongs to which area?

All three are closely related often with blurring boundaries and sometimes have overlapping functions and at the very least need to work closely with each other to reach their end goals. But still there is a need to understand the basic difference between the three to be able to perform whatever role you have, more effectively. Based on my understanding I will layout what each means and how they are related to each other at a very high level.

Data Management, I believe, encompasses the broadest scope of the three - governance and stewardship being the sub-functions. It encompasses everything related to the data that an organization has – right from definition, delivery, quality to security and access. As per DAMA Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK):

"Data management is the development, execution and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that control, protect, deliver and enhance the value of data and information assets.”

Data Governance deals with setting up policies and processes that help protect data and maintain its quality. It can be a direct implication of external regulations like Basel, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA etc or can come from an organization’s internal desire to maintain and protect its data or a combination of both. The good thing as well as the most challenging thing about governance is that once the rules and policies are laid out, they have to be adhered to – it becomes a mandate rather than an option. To help ensure adherence, compliance and implementation, we need Data Stewards and Data Custodians. Data Stewards are responsible for what is stored in a Data field and Data Custodians ensure how it is stored. Data Stewards look after the metadata and the data quality and the processes around them whereas Data Custodians look after the technical environment and the database structure.

So here is how everything is related at a very high level: 

In the subsequent blogs, I will try to dig deeper into various aspects of Data Management, governance and stewardship.

Do let me know your thoughts?