Good governance over the use of your investment is essential. Without it, the data areas will become full: data will be of unknown provenance, unknown quality, and unknown content. This means that it will be unusable by any process, except the one that put it there in the first place. This in turn leads to serious data duplication. The processing power then becomes overloaded too. Processing and reprocessing the same information. The network and i/o paths work harder than they have to. This all leads to a poorly performing system, desperately in need of further investment.

Governance means balanced control. Control over the data and their sources. Control over the processes. Control over the users that access the system and the data they can use. Balancing that control with the freedom that users need to investigate and use the data.

Typically, businesses consider variations on one of two governance approaches: explicit or implicit. Explicit governance means that no one can do anything without going through a governance process. Implicit governance means that everyone can do anything unless specifically covered by a standard, laid down by the governance framework. Balancing these competing styles is the key.

We have developed governance frameworks for a variety of organisations. Standards for development; for data provenance; and for access control. Getting the balance right from the beginning is paramount: it is often too late once a system is up and running.