Post last updated: March 15, 2021
How to accomplish effective, enterprise-level, Power BI deployment and governance is a really important topic. There are quite a few aspects to it, but in this post I want to talk a little about what it means to have governed data.
Let’s define data governance in general first.
Defining Data Governance
Technology-minded folks tend to think about data management and data operations an awful lot, but data governance is different. This is my favorite definition of data governance:
“Data governance is a
system of decision rights and accountabilities
for information-related processes,
executed according to agreed-upon models which describe
who can take what actions
with what information,
and when,
under what circumstances,
using what methods.”
Definition from the Data Governance Institute
Defining Power BI Governance
I tend to think a governed Power BI environment is when we know and can verify that the right data is available to the right people in the right way for the right reason.
Although I do like the above definition of a governed Power BI environment, it’s very broad and imprecise. So then, let’s get to the original question.
What is Governed Data?
I believe it comes down to 4 main areas. Data is governed when it is:
Trustworthy
Secured
Managed & Audited
Documented & Understood
Now here’s the cool part. If we think about it…we can directly correlate those 4 areas to our earlier definition of a governed Power BI environment:
Trustworthy
Secured
Managed & Audited
Documented & Understood
—> the right data
—> the right people
—> the right way
—> the right reason
Trustworthy data is:
Displayed accurately & scrutinized for quality
Understandable, complete, consistent
Delivered timely
Discoverable & findable by authorized users
Assigned responsibility & ownership
Clearly traceable by lineage (provenance)
Not duplicated unnecessarily
Automated when possible
Secured data is:
Accessed based on current job role
Protected for privacy
Classified with data handling rules based on sensitivity level
Compliant with regulatory & privacy requirements
Auditable
Managed & Audited data is:
Assigned ownership & accountability
Subject to relevant policies based on data value & sensitivity level
Managed proficiently by trained individuals throughout its entire lifecycle
Audited for best practices, health, security & compliance
Monitored for non-compliance
Documented & Understood data is:
Registered, defined & catalogued
Updated with relevant metadata
Discoverable by authorized users
Using agreed-upon taxonomy with consistent terminology
Traceable by lineage
Governing data is hard. No question about it.
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