Basically the construction of a data governance use case can be reduced to 3 questions:
- Why do this DataGovernance initiative?
- What actions should be taken?
- What is the target ?
Why ?
It is illusory to do a data governance initiative without linking it to business needs. You will therefore need to:
- Identify areas where information can directly support the business.
- Identify where information is used to move the business forward.
To identify this, here are some sample questions :
- What data is most used in high-value activities?
- What systems and processes are used to acquire this data?
- Have any issues been identified with this data?
- What are the risks of not addressing these issues?
- ….
What do I want to do?
It's easy to make a list of best practices in data governance. For example:
- Establish a data governance organization and framework.
- Identify owners and stewards
- Develop data management best practices.
However, a list of best practices does not make a successful data governance program. That's why, in addition to identifying what actions need to be taken, you need to specify how these actions will meet the identified business needs.
Who is it for?
Finally, your use case must target a population. As data governance is a cross-disciplinary subject, a single use case will not solve all the problems. Building personas is a good way to
- Distinguish the different actors you want to target
- Identify their difficulties and challenges
- To highlight the answers to these challenges and difficulties.
You can even go further by identifying, for each persona, a customer journey.