Establish Data Governance
why it matters
Establishing governance— the way you will manage data and ensure its accuracy— is a critical step for ensuring the sustainability of a data project. This step includes assigning roles and responsibilities necessary for project execution, defining data workflows, and accounting for legal considerations related to data sharing. This process is complex, but breaking the work up into stages can be a helpful way to ensure the project is well-organized and facilitates implementation.
Checklist
Map roles and responsibilities for the data pipeline, ranging from data entry all the way to decision making. Clearly defining these points will support project implementation and sustainability.
Identify an interagency champion who has the credibility and motivation to effectively advocate for the project.
Clarify data ownership and document how data will move through the system.
Craft the requisite data sharing agreements, ensuring you have accounted for all local, state, and federal compliance and privacy regulations.
Consult with legal experts to identify solutions for potential legal barriers to data-sharing.
Key Questions
Who collects, manages, or verifies data quality, integrates data sources, and generates reports? How will your team organize a stewarding committee for launch?
What are the key pieces of data, where do they come from, and what is their purpose? How do the key pieces of data all come together to achieve your data project goal?
Have you identified examples of data-sharing agreements or guidance documents that can help you develop your own version? What can you leverage from these examples?
Who or what are the oversight authorities? What are the timelines for reporting out?
Is your use case consistent with allowable uses under the laws or regulations governing each data source? Are there legal restrictions on sharing data across agencies?
Are legal agreements needed to collect and share data? Are there existing agreements you can use or modify?
Tools + Resources
R.A.C.I. Worksheet: A Tool for Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
Shifting Power through Data Governance (Mozilla)
Data Sharing Playbook (State of Connecticut)
Data Sharing Guidebook (North Carolina DHHS)
About the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University brings together students, expert practitioners, and extended networks to work on projects that solve societal challenges using data, design, technology, and policy. Our projects test new ways for public and private institutions to leverage data and analytics, digital technologies, and service design to help more people.
About the national governors association
The National Governors Association is the voice of the leaders of 55 states, territories, and commonwealths and supports governors in their work to develop innovative solutions to today’s problems. Through the NGA Center for Best Practices, Governors work with policy teams to identify priority issues and deal with matters of public policy and governance at the state, national and global levels.