Data governance is a big topic, and the technology to manage your data is constantly changing. To keep up with the latest trends, it doesn’t hurt to read what the experts are saying on the subject. Fortunately, there are plenty of data governance thought leaders releasing books to help you stay on the bleeding edge of this ever-evolving subject. Whether you’re just learning about data governance or seeking to gain a deeper understanding of your current governance strategy, this 2024 reading list should put you ahead of the curve.
1. "Data Governance: How to Design, Deploy, and Sustain an Effective Data Governance Program" by John Ladley
If you’re just getting started with a data governance program, "Data Governance: How to Design, Deploy, and Sustain an Effective Data Governance Program" by John Ladley is a great place to start. Ladley has decades as a thought leader in the Enterprise Information Management space, and his book is as relevant as ever, despite coming out in 2012.
In this book, readers will get a comprehensive primer on the data governance lifecycle. It is specifically made for managers who need the steps to implement a data governance program in their company. Complete with case studies and detailed data governance frameworks, it’s hard to find a better book that outlines the basics of data governance strategy.
2. "The Data Governance Imperative: A Framework for Success" by Steve Sarsfield
You’ve implemented a comprehensive data governance strategy in your business – now what? Managers need the tools to maintain data governance programs and ensure long-term success. "The Data Governance Imperative: A Framework for Success" by Steve Sarsfield is an excellent resource for strategies and tactics for managing data governance strategies.
Steve Sarsfield is the writer of an award-winning blog called the Data Governance and Data Quality Insider and has extensive experience working for major enterprise software companies. This book will help guide you forward as you improve and iterate your data governance program.
3. "Managing Data in Motion: Data Integration Best Practice Techniques and Technologies" by April Reeve
Data migration and data integration are crucial parts of data governance, especially in the era of Big Data. Managers can learn about the technologies and techniques that facilitate data integration in "Managing Data in Motion: Data Integration Best Practice Techniques and Technologies" by April Reeve.
In "Managing Data in Motion: Data Integration Best Practice Techniques and Technologies,” Reeve walks readers through the architecture and technology needed for data integration, as well as solutions for handling unstructured and structured data. Those who want to ensure their data architecture is scalable will surely benefit from this book.
4. "Data Governance Tools: Evaluation Criteria, Big Data Governance, and Alignment with Enterprise Data Management" by Sunil Soares
The best data governance strategies leverage top data governance tools to ensure success, efficacy, and scalability. "Data Governance Tools: Evaluation Criteria, Big Data Governance, and Alignment with Enterprise Data Management" by Sunil Soares will help managers create a comprehensive criteria checklist for vetting potential tools.
While "Data Governance Tools: Evaluation Criteria, Big Data Governance, and Alignment with Enterprise Data Management" has been out for around a decade now, and the tools have changed, the evaluation checklist remains relevant. Managers need to ask questions when choosing software tools, and this book will help them ask the right ones.
5. "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets" by Neera Bhansali
A big part of data governance is ensuring that you’re maximizing the value of your data assets and ensuring responsibility and accountability is assigned to the right data stewards. "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets" by Neera Bhansali takes a closer look at successful strategies for distributing the responsibilities of data governance to increase success and the worth of data assets.
This book also dives into strategies for aligning your data governance processes with business goals, building a data stewardship strategy, and much more. By looking at case studies in the finance and healthcare industries, this book provides additional insight into how these strategies can be applied in the real world.
6. “Data Governance: The Definitive Guide: People, Processes, and Tools to Operationalize Data Trustworthiness” by Evren Eryurek, Uri Gilad, and more
Data governance is best approached holistically, with strategies that look at the people, processes, and tools involved at every step of the data governance lifecycle. This is especially crucial as many companies move data to the cloud. By taking this holistic approach, companies can ensure their data remains trustworthy and accurate.
“Data Governance: The Definitive Guide: People, Processes, and Tools to Operationalize Data Trustworthiness” by Evren Eryurek, Uri Gilad, Valliappa Lakshmanan, Anita Kibunguchy, and Jessi Ashdown teaches readers a wide range of topics that will help improve data trustworthiness. Topics covered include data governance strategies, the benefits of moving to the cloud, challenges of moving to the cloud, improving data quality, data protection, data democratization, and more.
7. "The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK)" by DAMA International
You can view "The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK)" by DAMA International as an encyclopedia of data management knowledge. This book takes a deep dive into the challenges, complexities, and value of effective data management. This book has been extensively reviewed and agreed upon by data experts, providing guiding principles for data management and common vocabulary for data management concepts.
In short, if you want a solid reference book for data management, "The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK)" by DAMA International is a great resource to pick up.
8. "Data Stewardship: An Actionable Guide to Effective Data Management and Data Governance" by David Plotkin
"Data Stewardship: An Actionable Guide to Effective Data Management and Data Governance" by David Plotkin is the second edition of Plotkin’s book, updated for the Big Data era. This edition specifically takes a closer look at data governance and stewardship structures for companies that do business internationally. Data stewardship can be complicated for bigger organizations, and this book will help give you actionable strategies and techniques for ensuring buy-in from your data stewards.
If you have the first edition of this book, this is the perfect update for the modern data age. With this book, you can ensure your data stewardship strategy is sustainable and built for long-term success.
9. "The Chief Data Officer Handbook for Data Governance" by Sunil Soares
The role of Chief Data Officer has emerged in the past decade as an increasingly important position in data-driven companies. Chief Data Officers need to maximize the value and usability of an organization’s data, but they often have to figure out how to do this successfully on their own. A straightforward ‘playbook’ didn’t really exist until "The Chief Data Officer Handbook for Data Governance" by Sunil Soares.
"The Chief Data Officer Handbook for Data Governance" walks Chief Data Officers through a practical handbook for managing data and data governance teams. With this book, Chief Data Officers can ensure they’re contributing maximum value to their company.
10. “Data Governance For Dummies” by Jonathan Reichental
Despite the funny name, the “For Dummies” series of books is always a great place to start for most subjects, as you can learn complicated concepts in plain language. “Data Governance For Dummies” by Jonathan Reichental applies this to the world of data governance, giving you a basic primer on everything you need to know about implementing data governance in your organization.
In this book, readers will learn about the value of data and how to design governance programs. It also takes a look at how to implement governance tools in your data stack and how to democratize data usage in your organization.
11. "Data Governance Simplified: Creating and Measuring Trusted Data for Businesses” by Holly Heath Starling
"Data Governance Simplified: Creating and Measuring Trusted Data for Businesses” by Holly Heath Starling is another great primer for those that want to implement a data governance program in their organization. This book takes a special focus on making sure you set up a governance strategy that will produce data you can trust. Readers will learn how to quantify and measure trust, so they can improve data accuracy when implementing their new program.
By outlining clear success metrics for data quality, data managers can make sure their governance program starts off on the right foot. Pick up this book if you want to not only learn how to improve data quality but also learn how to measure improvement.
12. “Disrupting Data Governance: A Call to Action” by Laura Madsen
For a cutting-edge book about data governance, “Disrupting Data Governance: A Call to Action '' by Laura Madsen is a great choice. Madsen, who has data governance and analytics, takes a modern look at data governance. This book helps to challenge rote or outdated strategies and takes a more people-driven approach to governance.
If you want to diversify your views on data governance, this will be a great read. It offers new, bleed-edge techniques and technologies that will help you build your strategy for the modern data model.
13. “Data Governance: Governing data for sustainable business” by Alison Holt and more
“Data Governance: Governing data for sustainable business” by Alison Holt is a great guide for developing data governance policies and strategies based on ISO 38505 governance of data standards.
Compliance and adherence to a data strategy are essential for successful and sustainable data governance programs. With this book, data stakeholders will learn how to assess the risks and value of data collection and integration strategies.
14. "Data Quality Assessment" by Arkady Maydanchik
Data quality is paramount for any data-driven business. If your data is riddled with errors and bottlenecked by faulty processes, your insights won’t be much help. "Data Quality Assessment" by Arkady Maydanchik will give data managers the tools they need to assess data and improve its quality.
In this book, readers will learn about identifying, designing, and implementing data quality rules. Foregoing theory for practical techniques, this book will help organizations create a data quality scorecard and design an ongoing assessment strategy to ensure their data quality only gets better over time.
15. "Minimum Viable SQL Patterns” by Ergest Xheblati
Part of maintaining data governance policies is making sure you have a quality data model in place. Many data models are coded in SQL, and it can be invaluable for SQL users to upskill so they can improve their SQL code and make it more efficient. That’s where "Minimum Viable SQL Patterns” by Ergest Xheblati can help.
"Minimum Viable SQL Patterns'' will teach readers how to make their SQL code faster and more efficient, make it cleaner and easier to understand, and prevent code from breaking down when data changes. After reading this book, your code will be easier to maintain, making it easier to maintain the data governance strategies applied to your data model as well.
Who Should Read Books on Data Governance?
Anyone involved in data management, decision-making, or policy-making at a professional level can benefit from reading these books. This could include data managers, IT professionals, knowledge workers, researchers, professors, and more.
As data governance becomes increasingly important, staying up to date with the trends and knowledge in the data management space is crucial. By staying informed, organizations can ensure that not only do they not fall behind, but they stay ahead of the curve and mitigate data risks before they become an issue.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced professional, reading books on data governance can help you learn and stay on top of the emerging changes in the industry.
Why Is Data Governance Important?
Data governance is crucial for organizations of all sizes across all industries. Here are a few reasons why data governance is important:
- Regulatory compliance - Data governance policies ensure your company stays in line with compliance regulations and regulatory requirements in your industry. Adhering to compliance is essential to avoid penalties, fees, and damage to your reputation.
- Improved data quality - Data governance policies help ensure data is accurate and consistent. With improved data quality, your users can trust the data in their reports and analytics.
- Improved decision-making - When data quality is improved, so are data-driven decisions. Users can make better, more informed decisions when they can access consistent and accurate data.
- Improved security - Data governance helps to improve overall data security. By implementing access controls and security procedures, you can mitigate the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats.
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Fortunately, there are various data management tools available to improve data governance. Secoda is an all-in-one data management solution that offers tools for automated data lineage, AI-powered data discovery, user access management, data cataloging, and more. With these features, you can automate and improve many of your data governance processes. Schedule a demo for Secoda, or try it out for free today to learn more.
