Data Governance: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 8. Monitoring

In previous chapters, we explained what governance is; discussed the tools, people, and processes of governance; looked at data governance over a data life cycle; and even did a deeper dive into governance concepts, including data quality and data protection.

In this chapter, we will do a deep dive into monitoring as a way to understand how your governance implementations are performing day-to-day, and even on a longer-term basis. You will learn what monitoring is, why it is important, what to look for in a monitoring system, what components of governance to monitor, the benefits of monitoring, and the implications of doing so. You have implemented governance in your organization, so how do you know what’s working and what’s not? It’s important to be able to monitor and track the performance of your governance initiatives so you can report to all the stakeholders the impact the program has had on the organization. This allows you to ask for additional resources, course-correct if/as needed, learn from the wins and failures, and really showcase the impact of the governance program—not to mention making the most of potential growth opportunities that might become more visible to the chief data and digital officers of your organization. So what is monitoring? Let’s start by introducing the concept.

What Is Monitoring?

Monitoring allows you to know what is happening as soon as it happens so you can act quickly. We’re in a world in which companies and individuals ...