Data Governance vs. Data Management
Data Center Dynamics, Thursday, October 19,2023
When managers and workers discuss Data Governance (DG), a business program that supports harmonized data activities, vs. Data Management (DM), a comprehensive collection of practices, concepts, and processes dedicated to leveraging data assets, they often use the terms interchangeably.
Sometimes, both words point to the same concepts, and these conversations remain productive. At other times, switching between 'Data Governance' and 'Data Management' leads to miscommunication.
For example, Data Governance, while standardizing Data Quality tasks, does not include technical details about Data Quality cleansing tools; however, this topic does fall under Data Management. So, the mixing and matching terms can create muddled conversations, where Data Governance faces scope creep or Data Management conversations that remain a priority for Data Governance get lost. This miscommunication may explain why 82% of business leaders list confusing Data Governance policies as a top challenge.