Policies, Standards, Procedures & Business Glossary
Principle → Policy → Standard → Procedure
This is a useful study flow from foundational guidance toward operational specificity. It is not a claim that every principle creates exactly one policy/standard/procedure.
Principle
Foundational belief or guidance.
Example: Data is an enterprise asset.
Policy
Enterprise-wide directive codifying principles/intent into fundamental rules about what should or should not happen.
Chapter 3 expects policies to be relatively few, brief and direct rather than encyclopedic procedure manuals.
Example: Restricted data must not be sent to unapproved recipients.
Standard
Authoritative, measurable rule/measure used for consistent judgment and conformance. Chapter 3 says governance standards should be mandatory/enforceable and capable of being monitored/audited.
Example: Customer date fields must use YYYY-MM-DD.
Procedure
Documented methods, techniques and steps followed to perform an activity and produce outcomes/artifacts.
Example: Request → steward review → DGC approval → publish.
Deciding shorthand
Believe → Direct → Measure → Do
- Principle = why/belief.
- Policy = what/what not.
- Standard = what counts as acceptable / measurable conformance.
- Procedure = how/steps.
Anti-pattern: the 240-page “policy”
A document containing detailed step-by-step instructions should be decomposed: keep the enterprise policy directive concise, move mandatory measurable requirements into standards and execution steps into procedures.
Business Glossary
Chapter 3's Business Glossary is not merely a list of definitions. It is a governed resource for agreed business terminology connected to data and related Metadata.
A term can carry: - agreed definition; - synonyms/variants; - metrics; - lineage/context; - security/privacy classification; - business rules; - responsible steward/ownership information; - relationships to data and other terms.
Business Data Stewards generally steward glossary content.
Glossary vs Enterprise Data Model
They are complementary, not interchangeable.
- Glossary governs business meaning/context.
- Enterprise Data Model represents data structures/relationships.
Governance should coordinate stewards with architects/modelers so approved business meaning is reflected appropriately in enterprise/project structures.
Source anchors: Chapter 3 p. 79; pp. 91–93.