Preface

The world generates ~2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day (and growing!). As a result, understanding and managing the data created becomes more complex every single day. It’s our job to drive simplicity, understanding, and ease of use to make accessing and using data as easy and understandable as possible.

As a data professional, our role is to ensure we can govern data and empower our businesses with the right data, at the right time, with the right controls. This book is a comprehensive guide on how to better understand what data governance is, its key components, and how to successfully position solutions in a way that translates into real, understandable business results. After reading this book, you will be able to successfully pitch and gain support for a data governance program, with measured outcomes in terms the business will understand and deeply value.

We will move from establishing a Chief Data and Analytics Office and building a business case to successfully implementing the more technical capabilities that any CDAO will need to deliver to drive successful data management. You will notice in this book that I emphasize the “why” behind these capabilities. In my experience, simply explaining what the capabilities are without being able to see how they can impact a business is a recipe for failure.

There are many more technical books available on each of these topics, and where I hope this book will provide a variance from what is already available is that: business value. I will spend time explaining the technical capabilities in terms your business stakeholders can understand, with the aim of creating a business-led program.

Ultimately, if you want to get into details about a specific tool or technical implementation, there are loads of other great resources (including books) you can head to drive your implementation, including a wonderful inventory from the publisher of this book, Packt.