Overview
Question : What is Data Governance ?
Data Governance can be defined simply as ‘Doing things right’ in Enterprise Data Management by complying with the 
appropriate rules, policies and procedures.

These will all be designed to make sure that data used throughout the Enterprise is good-quality data, certainly when it 
appears in Performance reports.

It's worth checking out Wikipedia on Data Governance
  
Question : How do I get a top-down view of Data Management in my organisation ?
Answers to this question are at different levels :-
•	Data Governance at the top-level 
•	Master Data Management at the mid-level
•	Data Integration at the mid-level
•	Data Owners and Sources at the lowest level
•	Information Catalogue mandated as the central repository of all this information
•	Appropriate procedures in place to control all of these factors.

Question : Why should my organisation have a Data Governance function ?
The existence of a Data Governance function is a measure of the maturity of Data Management within an organization
The first steps should be to establish a thin slice of Data Governance from top to bottom 

If you are active in this area, you should consider joining a professional organizational.
This helps you to network with your peer group and will encourage you to keep up-to-date in knowledge and professional practice.
 
Here are two organisations that are playing active roles in Data Governance :-
i) The Data Governance Institute - Membership starts at $150 for individuals.
 
ii) The Data Governance and Stewardship Community of Practice - $150/year. 		-
It includes coverage of some very useful Case Studies.

It also maintains a Data Governance Software Web Site,
and a Sarbanes-Oxley Web Site.

Question : What is Best Practice ?
Successful Data Governance requires successful completion of many Tasks, most of which are not technical and 
all of which are complex and challenging.
The process of initially establishing Data Governance will always take much longer than anticipated. 
Therefore, management of expectations is very important.

It is necessary to aim for collaboration and by-in from the start.

This buy-in must be top-down and bottom-up.
The top-down buy-in manifests itself by, for example, a realization that ‘Data Quality is an Enterprise Issue’.
The bottom-up buy-in is important because quality of Source data is critical and must be good, otherwise any 
Data Governance issue will fail.

Auditing, for example, of database changes, is a basic requirement.
Question : What is Data Lineage ?
Data Lineage can be defined as being able to the trace the derivation of all items of data that appear in any 
important Performance Reports and Management Information.

That includes :-
 Who owns the original source data
 What validation and transformations are applied to the data in its life cycle

How do I verify the derivation of all data (the Data Lineage’) in my Reports ?
This requires the use of an Information Catalogue that will record the source, processing steps and 
final delivery in a Report. The transformations in the processing Steps must be specified in both 
the processing language, for example SQL, and in plain, unambiguous English so that the Data Owner 
can sign-off on the Data Lineage.


This 20-page PDF document describes the Framework from the Data Governance Institute.