This book isn’t just a guide; it’s a complete overview of the guardrails needed for a sustainable data governance framework. David doesn’t just offer theory; he shares practical examples on how to put these guardrails into action. His insights are invaluable, practical, and directly applicable—a must-read for every data governance practitioner.

Mathias Vercauteren, The Data Governance Advocate & President of Data Vantage Consulting

“The Guardrail Hierarchy” is a compelling blend of insight, practicality, and expertise —a must-read for every data professional seeking sustainable data governance.

Robert Wentz, Senior Advisor, EDM Council

Data Governance can be complicated and difficult (and as David reiterates-specific to each organization). This short text provides guardrails that should help most with the challenging task of getting organized. I plan to keep a copy handy as I recommend all organizations do.

Peter Aiken, data management thoughtleader, author, and Founding Director, Anything Awesome LLC

David reminds us that everyone’s organization has its own culture, expectations, and attitudes toward documentation. He’s also outlined a hierarchical way of thinking about, classifying, and deciding what data-related policies and other guardrails should contain.

Gwen Thomas, Founder of the Data Governance Institute

If you are just starting out as a Data Governance professional, or are a seasoned practitioner, you need this book as one of your references. If you’re in the C-Suite, it provides a practical framework for creating and executing the Data Governance agenda in your organization. There is a lifetime of experience in these pages, and it belongs in your Data Governance toolkit.

Andrew Andrews
Vice President Marketing, DAMA International Regional Advocate, Australia and New Zealand, Enterprise Data Management Council.

If you are “doing” (or thinking about doing) data governance, you need this book!

Danette McGilvray, President and Principle, Granite Falls Consulting, Inc. She is the author of the book Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information™.

You wouldn’t speed down a mountain road if it didn’t have strong guardrails—why approach Data Governance any differently?

We’ve all heard the numbers. Global data production is increasing at an exponential rate. While none of us has to deal with ALL that data, the pattern is clear: the more our business focuses on leveraging the value inherent in our data, the more data we need to manage.

What most companies, large and small, regardless of business sector, need to establish is a sense of Holistic Data Governance: Data Governance that is aware of both the needs of the organization as a whole and as the sum of its parts, and that establishes firm guardrails to ensure consistency across the whole company.

This book is the first in a series covering how to adopt a consistent, integrated approach to managing data at scale. In this initial volume, we focus on the definition of a foundational set of Data Governance Guardrails that work together to unite the best thinking of the organization in a manner that allows us to accommodate the varying needs of different parts of the company while simultaneously providing the consistency of approach that will enable us to scale effectively and efficiently across the entire company.

We start by knowing and documenting what is important to the organization and showing how that drives our approach to the data that supports those high-level business goals. We then look at the processes for using, managing, and governing that data before creating high-level, strategic instructions that inform how we work with our data. Collectively, this forms a hierarchy of documents that encapsulates our most important thinking about how and why data matters to us.

Much like the safety barriers that we encounter on twisty mountain roads, these Governance Guardrail documents are intended to keep all of our practitioners safely on a defined path. Collectively, the guardrails exist not simply to guide what the organization can and cannot do, but also to reinforce the establishment, enforcement, and outcome of all the other guardrails. In short, we define a Holistic approach to Data Governance that establishes consistent mandates from the most generalized corporate vision through all your policies and procedures, down to specific implementation project plans.