Background

What is Data Stewardship?

Data stewardship is the management and oversight of an organization's data assets to ensure their integrity, quality, security, and usability throughout their lifecycle. Data stewards are responsible for defining and enforcing data policies, standards, and procedures, as well as resolving data-related issues and promoting data management best practices across the organization.

Data Stewards are the eyes and hands that make sure the individual specific data tasks get done.  If manual editing of data needs to be done, they do it.  If an issue is spotted, they bring it to the attention of the appropriate people.  The data steward is often the first line of defense for both protection and enhancement of the data, as well as answers and enrichment of user experience.

Key aspects of data stewardship include:

1. Data Governance: Data stewardship is closely linked to data governance, which involves the overall management framework for ensuring that data is managed effectively and used responsibly. Data stewards play a key role in implementing and enforcing data governance policies, procedures, and controls to ensure that data assets are managed in accordance with organizational goals and objectives.
2. Data Quality Management: Data stewards are responsible for monitoring and improving the quality of data within the organization. This includes identifying data quality issues, implementing data quality standards and metrics, and working with data owners and stakeholders to address data quality problems and improve data accuracy, completeness, and reliability.
3. Data Security and Privacy: Data stewards are responsible for ensuring that data assets are protected from unauthorized access, disclosure, or misuse. This involves implementing security measures, access controls, and data protection mechanisms to safeguard sensitive information and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards related to data security and privacy.
4. Data Lifecycle Management: Data stewards oversee the entire lifecycle of data within the organization, from its creation and collection to its archival or disposal. This includes defining data retention policies, managing data storage and archival processes, and ensuring that data is managed in a manner that maximizes its value and minimizes risk throughout its lifecycle.
5. Data Integration and Interoperability: Data stewards are responsible for ensuring that data is integrated and interoperable across different systems, applications, and platforms within the organization. This involves defining data standards, formats, and protocols to enable seamless data exchange and interoperability, as well as resolving data integration issues and conflicts that may arise.
6. Data Usage and Access Control: Data stewards define and enforce policies and procedures related to data usage and access control. This includes determining who has permission to access and use data, defining access controls and permissions, and monitoring data usage to ensure compliance with organizational policies and regulatory requirements.
7. Data Stewardship Culture: Data stewards promote a culture of data stewardship and data-driven decision-making across the organization. This involves raising awareness about the importance of data management and stewardship, providing training and guidance to employees on data-related issues and best practices, and fostering collaboration and communication among data stakeholders to ensure that data management efforts are aligned with organizational goals and objectives.

Where It Affects Your Business

HOW DOES Data Stewardship IMPROVE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE?

Data stewardship improves business performance in several key ways:



1. Enhanced Data Quality: Data stewardship ensures that data is accurate, consistent, and reliable. By monitoring data quality, identifying issues, and implementing quality improvement measures, data stewards help to ensure that decision-makers have access to high-quality data for analysis and decision-making. This leads to more accurate insights, better-informed decisions, and ultimately improved business performance.
2. Increased Data Trustworthiness: Trustworthy data is essential for making informed decisions and building confidence in business operations. Data stewardship ensures that data is managed transparently and ethically, with clear accountability and responsibility for data integrity and security. This fosters trust among stakeholders, customers, and partners, leading to stronger relationships and improved business performance.
3. Streamlined Data Governance: Effective data stewardship establishes clear policies, procedures, and guidelines for data management, governance, and compliance. By defining roles and responsibilities, enforcing data standards, and ensuring regulatory compliance, data stewards help to streamline data governance processes, reduce risks, and improve operational efficiency. This enables organizations to make better use of their data assets and drive business performance.
4. Improved Data Accessibility: Data stewardship promotes data accessibility by ensuring that data is available to those who need it, when they need it. By defining access controls, permissions, and data sharing protocols, data stewards help to break down data silos and enable collaboration across departments and teams. This facilitates faster decision-making, better coordination, and improved productivity, ultimately leading to better business performance.
5. Facilitated Decision-Making: Data stewardship provides decision-makers with the information they need to make timely and informed decisions. By managing data effectively and ensuring its accuracy, relevance, and availability, data stewards empower decision-makers to access the right data at the right time, enabling them to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and respond quickly to changing market conditions. This leads to more agile and effective decision-making, driving improved business performance.
6. Support for Innovation and Growth: Data stewardship lays the foundation for innovation and growth by enabling organizations to leverage their data assets effectively. By ensuring that data is managed securely, ethically, and in compliance with regulations, data stewards create a trusted foundation for data-driven innovation. This enables organizations to explore new opportunities, develop new products and services, and enter new markets, driving business growth and competitive advantage.