Chapter 20 — Data governance: engineering context
Lesson map
Lesson 20 published. Map, example, EX058.
flowchart TD
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["20.1 What governance means here"]
N2["20.2 Decision rights"]
N3["20.3 Roles"]
N4["20.4 Scope of the specialist work"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4
N4 --> EX["Worked example"]
EX --> Q["Exercise EX058"]
Logical drawing
flowchart LR
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["20.1 What governance means here"]
N2["20.2 Decision rights"]
N3["20.3 Roles"]
N4["20.4 Scope of the specialist work"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> Q["EX058"]
[Learning outcomes]
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v
[20.1 What governance means here]
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v
[20.2 Decision rights]
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v
[20.3 Roles]
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v
[20.4 Scope of the specialist work]
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v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX058]
Learning outcomes
You will (1) define data governance for an engineering organisation; (2) map decision rights; (3) set the scope of the specialist chapters.
20.1 What governance means here
Kofi defines data governance at Tidewater as the system of decision rights, policies, roles and controls that ensures meter, sensor, customer and asset data are fit for their uses and handled lawfully. DAMA-DMBOK2 describes governance as authority and control over data assets, while ISO/IEC 38505-1 asks the governing body to direct, evaluate and monitor data use. He notes that the previous nineteen chapters supplied the engineering foundations that governance now relies on. Kofi presents this definition to the head of data, who adopts it for Tidewater's governance charter.
20.2 Decision rights
Kofi uses Khatri and Brown's domains to map decision rights at Tidewater: data principles, quality, metadata, access and life cycle. For each, he records who decides, who provides input and who is informed. The map shows that quality rules for meter data are decided by whoever writes the pipeline code, while retention decisions are made by nobody. He presents these gaps to the head of data, who agrees to assign owners for each domain. Each assignment is dated and recorded in the charter.
20.3 Roles
Kofi proposes roles: a data governance board chaired by the operations director, data owners for each major data domain, stewards who maintain rules and definitions day to day, and custodians in IT who operate systems. He writes a short description of each role's decisions and duties. He stresses that owners must have authority over the processes that create their data; otherwise they become accountable for problems they cannot fix, which leads to frustration rather than improvement. The board approves the role descriptions.
20.4 Scope of the specialist work
Kofi sets the scope for the remaining chapters: requirements, models, threats, methods, architecture, controls, implementation, measurement, reliability, safety, integration, performance, operations, validation and maintainability, all applied to Tidewater's meter-to-board-report data chain. Prof. Varga approves a focus on the leakage indicator reported to the regulator, because it depends on many systems and teams, making it a good test of governance across engineering boundaries. The leakage indicator combines meter readings, sensor flows, network asset records and estimates, so every specialist chapter that follows tests a different part of the same chain from meter to regulator.
Worked example
Kofi defines governance for Tidewater, maps decision rights finding quality decided by code authors and retention by nobody, proposes board, owner, steward and custodian roles and scopes later work on the leakage indicator.
Synthetic case. Tidewater is synthetic; DAMA-DMBOK2, ISO/IEC 38505-1:2017 and Khatri and Brown (2010) are real.
Errors and limits
Role charts do not create authority; confirm it in job descriptions.
Exercises
- EX058 — Retention rights. Who decided retention before the map? Rubric: 3 = nobody;; 2 = partly correct;; 1 = someone;; 0 = none.
- EX059 — Steward duty. What do stewards do? Rubric: 3 = maintain rules and definitions day to day;; 2 = partly correct;; 1 = vague;; 0 = none.
- EX060 — Focus indicator. Which indicator do later chapters follow? Rubric: 3 = the leakage indicator reported to the regulator;; 2 = partly correct;; 1 = vague;; 0 = none.
Continue studying — lesson 20 (chapter 20 of 50)
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