Cambridge
Academy
In London

Introduction

Data Governance helps organizations manage data as an asset—making it reliable, secure, well-defined, and usable for reporting and decision-making. This practical program introduces simple governance structures, stewardship roles, decision rights, and routines for standards, quality, access, and accountability.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

·        Explain data governance concepts and why they matter

·        Define governance roles: owners, stewards, custodians, and users

·        Clarify decision rights for data standards, access, and quality

·        Establish simple governance processes: policies, issue management, change control

·        Create a practical data governance starter toolkit and rollout plan

Target Audience

This course is designed for

·        Data management officers and data governance teams

·        Data owners, data stewards, and business analysts

·        BI/reporting teams and data platform staff

·        Risk, compliance, and information security partners

·        Anyone responsible for data quality, access, or definitions 

Course Outlines

Day 1: Data Governance Foundations

·        What data governance is and why it matters (trust, risk, value)

·        Key concepts: data domains, critical data elements, lifecycle

·        Governance vs data management vs IT operations (clear differences)

·        Common frameworks overview (DAMA, DCAM concepts) in simple terms

·        Activity: Identify your priority data domains and pain points

Day 2: Roles and Stewardship Model

·        Role clarity: data owner, data steward, custodian, producer, consumer

·        Stewardship responsibilities: definitions, quality, access, issue resolution

·        Organizing stewardship: domain vs function, central vs federated

·        Skills and routines for stewards (practical checklist)

·        Workshop: Build a RACI for one data domain

Day 3: Decision Rights and Governance Structures

·        Decision types: definitions, standards, access, retention, quality rules

·        Decision rights tools: RACI/RAPID basics for data decisions

·        Governance forums: data council, domain working groups, architecture review

·        Terms of reference, cadence, and escalation paths

·        Activity: Draft a decision-rights map and committee ToR outline

Day 4: Policies, Standards, and Issue Management

·        Core governance artifacts: policies, standards, procedures, guidelines

·        Business glossary basics: naming, definitions, owners, approval

·        Metadata and lineage: what to capture first (simple approach)

·        Data issue management: logging, triage, root cause, remediation tracking

·        Case study: Run a data issue through a simple governance workflow 

Day 5: Data Quality, Access Controls, and Rollout Planning

·        Data quality dimensions and practical rules (validity, completeness, timeliness)

·        Monitoring: dashboards, exception reports, and thresholds

·        Access governance basics: classification, least privilege, approvals, reviews

·        Implementation plan: quick wins, communications, training, adoption measures

·        Activity: Produce a one-page data governance charter and 90-day plan