A governance plan is an essential part of your overall data governance framework. Whereas the latter is the concept of managing and protecting your data, the former is your actual plan for achieving this goal.
As such, you need both to design policies that detect how your data is collected, stored, managed, protected, and deleted. Your governance plan provides instructions on standardizing data collection, minimizing information silos, and regulating who has access to sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII) at any given time.
Data recovery software is important in your governance plan.
What is included in a governance plan?
The most suitable governance plan is tailored to your organizational needs and IT budget. According to McKinsey experts, however, a typical governance plan includes three components.
- A centralized office or team (commonly known as a “data council”) that sets the overall direction and standards of data governance.
- Clear data management roles to determine day-to-day work.
- A data council that connects data strategies with corporate strategies (including securing funding).
It’s worth noting that these components are only recommended and not required. You should consult the heads of all your departments to determine your requirements, including assessing your current resources. Remember: Your governance plan should be as comprehensive as possible, given your existing tools and resources.
How do you start your governance plan?
To help you make the most effective governance plan for your organization, it’s highly suggested that you create policies that cover these three themes:
Alignment
Ensure your governance plan is aligned with your organization’s requirements and overall business goals. This part of your plan includes the metrics you’ll be using to determine progress and performance, what events you need to track, which software (if ever) to use to track them, and why you are tracking specific types of data.
Validation
This includes data integrity strategies and all policies needed for quality assurance. Ideally, your governance plan also includes proactive measurements to track, manage, and protect data points before they impact production.
Enforcement
How will you implement your governance plan? Typically, organizations establish a “data council” that determines what data policies to enforce to whom and at what time.
Enforcement also includes auditing practices. You must include strategies for overseeing the data council. This can be as simple as having the right stakeholders regularly audit and review any data policy implementation by the data council.
A checklist to consider for your governance plan
Here are some aspects to consider for your governance plan. Keep in mind that you can add or remove factors as needed.
- Data validation reporting. How will you track and validate your data points? This also includes strategies that minimize the risk of dirty data and data corruption.
- Notifications and alerting. How will your team respond to inaccurate or redundant data? Develop a notification hierarchy to determine who responds to what issue.
- Enforcement settings. Create strategies to block, disable, or quarantine threats.
- Data standardization. Data governance includes consistent implementation across teams and platforms (such as websites, apps, and servers).
- Privacy management. Ensure your governance plan honors user privacy preferences and aligns with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.
Improve your data governance plan by better understanding IT compliance.
Read this article for more information.
Tips for creating your governance plan
- Use an incremental process. Designing your governance plan, which takes a broad look at your organization’s data, can be overwhelming. As such, it may be helpful to consider your short-term tactical goals first and then work your way upwards.
- Secure support from your stakeholders. It is crucial that all relevant stakeholders support your governance plan. This minimizes the risk of any downtimes or delays.
- Regularly refine your governance plan. All governance plans are dynamic. As you audit your policies, consider refining them whenever needed.
- Always document changes. The best governance plans include clear documentation instructions for how a data point is governed, managed, protected, and used.
- Assign clear roles and responsibilities. While there can be overlaps in data roles, you must still define clear duties for every team member in your data council. This prevents redundancy and allows everyone to contribute to your data governance efforts effectively.
NinjaOne and governance plans
NinjaOne’s business backup software can strengthen your governance plan by providing a powerful tool that safeguards your data in an easy-to-use and flexible solution.
If you’re ready, request a free quote, sign up for a 14-day free trial, or watch a demo.
