Adoption: To start small or move fast?

Implementing a unified governance solution is a strategic initiative that allows an organization to harness the full value of its data. When it comes to adoption, you’ll want to create an implementation plan that’s right for your organization.

Starting small

There are a few different ways to get started; the right one for your organization should align with your objectives. When you’re ready, you can launch your initiative by starting with one (or more) of these critical areas:

Data catalog
Data quality
Data governance

A common starting point is to establish a data catalog. As described earlier, a data catalog is a centralized repository where your metadata is stored. This simplicity and accessibility can drive better compliance with data governance and quality standards from the outset.

Implementing data quality measures early is another critical step and potential starting point. It can be as straightforward as defining data quality rules, metrics and setting up processes for regular audits. Ensuring early on that data is clean, consistent and trustworthy can help avoid the costly, complex process of fixing issues later.

Governance frameworks are also foundational — establishing the policies, procedures, and standards for data usage and handling across the organization.

Moving fast

But maybe you need to move fast? To do so, consider starting with a single use case and then using agile methodologies. This involves short sprints that focus on delivering small chunks of functionality quickly. It allows the business to see value early and provides an opportunity for feedback that can guide subsequent iterations and future use cases.

Automation tools can play a significant role in a rapid start.For example, automated data discovery and classification can accelerate the creation of a data catalog. Similarly, automated quality checks can be implemented to ensure new data sources meet quality thresholds before they are ingested into the system.

Expansion and scalability

Once you have your foundations in place, you can gradually expand the scope of your data solution. The key is to maintain flexibility and adaptability in the system to handle diverse data types and sources. As your organization matures in its use of data, observability becomes crucial. It will enable the team to monitor the system’s health and performance, understand data lineage, and quickly diagnose and resolve issues.

Continuous improvement

Finally, a successful implementation is not a one-time effort but requires continuous improvement. Regular reviews of data quality, governance policies and the overall data strategy helps ensure they align with the organization’s objectives.

By keeping the initial steps manageable and rapidly delivering value, you can build momentum for your data initiatives, securing buy-in from stakeholders and laying the groundwork for a data-driven culture.

Often, an experienced, trusted integration partner can help you implement a data solution that reflects industry best practices, a roadmap to provide direction and a rollout strategy that can drive adoption.

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The unified governance checklist

We’ve covered a lot of ground in these pages.For good reason. There’s a lot that’s going into your decision about a unified governance platform. So we’ve summarized everything into a streamlined checklist. Keep it with you to ensure you’re asking the right questions as you evaluate platforms.

Does it offer a data catalog that organizes your data assets in a way that makes them easy to find and use?
Does it provide data governance that includes a business glossary and data stewardship tools that effectively define data ownership and build trust in your data?
Does it help accelerate your AI initiatives with AI governance that reduces risk, protects privacy and drives trusted AI?
Does it include robust data privacy tools to protect sensitive data and comply with data protection regulations?
Does it have a central policy control system to define, enforce and monitor data access and usage policies across your organization?
Does it offer data lineage to help effectively manage and visualize the origin, transformation and consumption of data?
Does it come with a data quality & observability solution to drive data quality, accuracy and consistency?

Unifying governance for organizational success

Accelerating all your data and AI use cases

The gap between what your organization needs to do with data and what you can accomplish continues to widen, especially as AI adoption accelerates. Traditional fragmented governance, with controls tethered to specific systems and sources, prevents agencies from scaling their data and AI initiatives safely.

The Collibra Platform—which provides several deployment models including FedRAMP authorized cloud and self-hosted—offers a different approach through unified governance. By untethering governance from systems and sources, we give agencies true visibility, context and control throughout the full data cycle. Our platform enables automated access control and comprehensive AI governance, creating active links between datasets, policies and AI use cases.

The result? Data Confidence. Now you can accelerate all your data and AI use cases, safely.

Are you ready to transform how your organization manages data and AI?

Learn more about Collibra