Operating Qualities & Six Governance Principles
Three qualities of an effective DG function
Sustainable
Governance remains “sticky” beyond initial implementation. It has leadership, sponsorship, ownership, funding and operating discipline that survive the launch project.
Failure clue: governance disappears when temporary project funding ends.
Embedded
Governance is built into ordinary work — SDLC, analytics, Master Data, risk/compliance and other processes — rather than added as a late external checkpoint.
Failure clue: governance is consulted only at final approval after critical decisions were already made.
Measured
Governance establishes baselines, defines meaningful measures and demonstrates improvement/impact.
Failure clue: meetings happen but nobody can show whether policy conformance, issue resolution or business outcomes improved.
These qualities are concurrent, not a three-step maturity sequence.
Six Data Governance principles
| Principle | What it means | Exam clue |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership and strategy | Committed leadership; data strategy driven by business strategy. | sponsorship, strategic direction |
| Business-driven | DG is a business function governing business interaction with data and relevant IT decisions. | reject “IT owns governance” |
| Shared responsibility | Business stewards and technical Data Management professionals share responsibility. | business + technical participation |
| Multi-layered | Governance can occur at enterprise, local and intermediate levels. | more than one organizational level |
| Framework-based | Operating framework defines accountabilities/interactions across functions. | roles, bodies, interactions, issue pathways |
| Principle-based | Guiding principles form the foundation for policies and governance activity. | values/principles underlying policy |
Principle traps
- Business-driven is about governance being a business function; Shared responsibility is about business + technical participation.
- Multi-layered is about levels; Framework-based is about defined accountabilities/interactions.
- Leadership & strategy is more specific than generic “business-driven” when the clue is executive commitment and alignment of data strategy to business strategy.
Recognition drill
- “Every business unit and enterprise body participates at appropriate levels.” → Multi-layered.
- “Nobody knows who approves definitions or how roles interact.” → Framework-based gap.
- “Data team alone is told to govern the enterprise.” → violates Business-driven and Shared responsibility; choose based on whether the stem stresses business ownership or shared business/technical participation.
- “Program has no baseline or outcome evidence.” → Measured weak.
Source anchors: Chapter 3 pp. 73–74.