#dataaccountability

[jorgenguldmann]

Data Contracts and Sharing in a World of Distributed Attribute-Level Ownership

Enterprises increasingly understand the importance of data contracts to define obligations, responsibilities, and quality expectations for shared data. Traditionally, these contracts reference entire objects or datasets and assume a single owner is accountable. But as master data governance evolves, attributes within those objects often have distributed ownership, while central accountability…

Data Contracts and Sharing in a World of Distributed Attribute-Level Ownership

[jorgenguldmann]

The Many Faces of Data Ownership

In data management and governance, few terms cause as much confusion as “data owner” Across organisations, you’ll hear about data owners, process owners, system owners, product owners, and platform owners, often with overlapping definitions and unclear boundaries. Sometimes “owner” means the person who funds a capability, sometimes it’s the one accountable for day-to-day operations, and sometimes…

The Many Faces of Data Ownership

[jorgenguldmann]

From Firefighting to Flow

It may sound counterintuitive, but I believe most organisations do not struggle because they lack data governance frameworks, tools, or clearly defined roles. They struggle because they fail to learn. Data errors are discovered, corrected, and quietly forgotten, only to resurface later in a different report, a different system, or a different business process. Each incident is treated as…

From Firefighting to Flow

[jorgenguldmann]

Everyone Has Their Own Agenda, Even When the Project Is Shared

Thoughts on making data governance more than just a checkbox Everyone talks about data governance. Frameworks, policies, stewardship roles, governance boards, you name it. Yet, time and again, organisations struggle with poor data quality, inconsistent definitions, and slow decision-making. The harsh truth is that governance seldom works by itself. Policies do not fix bad data. Tools do not fix…

Everyone Has Their Own Agenda, Even When the Project Is Shared

[jorgenguldmann]

Why Organisations Struggle to Establish Data Stewardship

Organisations appoint data stewards, draw governance charts, and publish policies, yet data quality problems persist. This is not because frameworks are missing or tools are inadequate. Most failures stem from how stewardship is introduced, positioned, and supported inside the organisation. In many cases, stewardship is launched with good intentions but built on false assumptions. The role is…

[jorgenguldmann]

Remitters and Recipients

In data governance discussions, we often focus on owners, stewards, domains, and products. What receives far less attention, yet causes many misunderstandings, is a simpler and more powerful distinction: who remits data, and who receives data. This perspective shifts the conversation away from abstract accountability and toward how data actually moves, changes, and creates value within an…

Remitters and Recipients

[jorgenguldmann]

Dispersed, Lifecycle-Based Ownership Feels Right, and Fails in Practice

Dispersed, lifecycle-based data ownership sounds ideal. It promises clarity: data is maintained close to where it’s used, each domain owns the data it cares about, responsibilities shift smoothly from creation to maintenance, blocking, and archiving, and shared attributes are carefully guarded. On paper, it’s elegant and mature. In practice? It rarely works the way we imagine. This post reflects…

Dispersed, Lifecycle-Based Ownership Feels Right, and Fails in Practice

[jorgenguldmann]

Stop Chasing Data, Start Fixing Processes

In my experience, everything in master data starts and ends with processes. Yet, so often I see organizations focusing on data quality as if it exists in isolation, running audits, building dashboards, and defining rules while the processes that generate and use that data remain flawed or misunderstood. Data does not create value on its own. It only matters because of what people do with it: the…

Stop Chasing Data, Start Fixing Processes