What’s the best place to start when evolving data governance?

The data19%

The people43%

The processes21%

The policies12%

I wish I knew5%

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Sr. Database Administrator in Insurance (except health)10 days ago

Start with the basics—automate your policies right when data is created, not after something goes wrong. Classify data early, keep access consistent across platforms, and build in guardrails that fix themselves. That’s how real, scalable governance begins—not with audits, but with architecture.

Chief, Data Strategy Section in Government2 months ago

My easy-way-out response would be that you do not necessarily need to start with any one of these. You can simultaneously act on some or all of them. Staying within the question though, the most foundational and far-reaching aspect is policies in my view. Data is ever-growing/evolving and reactive, hard to steer things with it. People and processes are also fluid with reactions that depend on the situation. Policies are the most slow-moving, but far-reaching aspect, giving a team time to make informed changes to policies that hopefully fan out to the data, people, and processes. (This is why policies tend to be set from the top down.) Of course, all of these are important and ultimately need to be delt with for effective data governance.

Chief Data Analytics Officer & SVP Digital Technology in Consumer Goodsa year ago

I think this depends on your approach to policies in your organisation.  For ourselves, where we are starting with our policy framework is actually focusing on defining clear strategic principles and ensuring these are aligned and have sponsorship top down.  With this we can use these principles to drive the review of people and process capabilities against these agreed principles.

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VP of Dataa year ago

People interact with Processes. Processes are driven by System that  creates Data. That data is then transformed , accessed and transmitted for further use by People & Processes .

With that said , Data Governance from my perspective is define & manage the Process well  .  Defining the process well , will lead to who can do what in that process , meaning managing the People expectation resulting in managing the right Data.

Director of IT in Travel and Hospitality2 years ago

Start with what data is critical for achieving business goals.  Learn about that data, where it is (catalog), who has it (people/systems), how can you get to it and use it (process).  Then identify gaps for these aspects and build governance.  

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Less than 10%18%

10-25%50%

25-50%20%

More than 50%13%

I don't know

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Very inclined: I believe in constantly pushing for innovation and improvement, even if the current systems are effective46%

Moderately inclined: I'm open to innovation and change, but only if it clearly enhances or adds value to the existing systems47%

Not inclined: If the current systems are working effectively, I prefer to maintain stability and avoid unnecessary changes5%

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What’s the best place to start when evolving data governance? | Gartner Peer Community