Data governance needs combined top-down and bottom-up approach: Open Data Australia

High quality data governance comes from a combined top-down and bottom-up approach said Open Data Australia founder and CEO, Jamie Leach.

Leach, who is also the regional director of global not for profit FDATA told Digital Nation Australia that a common misconception about data is that it’s the responsibility of only coders and mathematicians.

“People think hardcore data scientists are all mathematics majors that can code and create these really massive algorithmic sets. That is not the case.”

According to Leach, data governance can start with actions as simple as naming conventions, file storage, file sharing and understanding the difference between servers and the cloud.

“I believe that every single person in an organisation should have a part to play in the role of data. If you're just leaving it to a governance executive, you've really left it too late,” she said.

While in the past, data governance was left to a single manager often working alongside compliance, she says that in order to raise the quality of the data, each individual must be accountable to their role in the process.

“Yes, the governance person can help set the systems and the processes and create those cultural roadmaps if you like. But the management needs to make sure that top-down, it's a priority. And from the bottom up, we need to make sure everybody is empowered and in a way and, made accountable for their own element of the data pie.”

This empowerment may come through education, or tools, as well as leaders actively removing roadblocks to appropriate data governance. This, she said, can lead to a culture of data-led decision making.

“When you do any sort of change management or transformation, you need to help the organisation go on this transformation, explain why it's important and also what the end goal of how you're going to use that data will be. And that starts to set that cultural transformation,” said Leach.

“The risk of doing nothing is no longer an option.”