Updated Data Governance Program from eLearningCurve

Whether you have been in the industry for a while, or are just starting out, you have likely noticed how the rapid pace of new and emerging technologies affects data management practices. We asked Dave Wells, Director of Education at eLearningCurve to talk a bit about how the industry has changed, the impact of those changes on data governance, and how eLearningCurve’s data governance curriculum has evolved to keep pace.

What changes have you seen in data management the last few years?

The world of data management has changed radically over the past several years. We’ve added cloud, big data, self-service, and much more. Yet our data governance practices are often still based on the much simpler data management needs of the past. The first signs of aging data governance practices appeared many years ago as agile development and data governance teams found themselves with conflicting objectives. Many organizations ignored those signs, or found work-arounds that failed to get to the heart of the problem.

In light of that, how is data governance different today?

Since those early signs, we have experienced increasing pressures that drive the need to rethink data governance. We have raised the bar on the critical nature of data governance. In the age of big data, the volume of sensitive data that we work with has exploded. Regulations that govern how we collect, use, and protect privacy sensitive data and personally identifying information continue to expand and non-compliance penalties become increasingly severe. At the same time, data risks have grown with increasingly sophisticated hackers and increased frequency of data breaches. Data governance has become a high-stakes game.

Not only high stakes, but the rules have changed. The top-down, command-and-control governance techniques of the past don’t work well with data discovery, data exploration, data science, and self-service analytics. Data governance by mandate no longer works. It is out of sync with the collaborative culture that is a key factor in becoming a data-driven organization. Communication, participation, and collaboration must become the primary tools of governance, with policies and rules becoming subordinate to people and practices.

Given all the changes in data management, and specifically data governance, how is eLearningCurve addressing these changes within their curriculum?

With all of these changes in mind, we have updated the eLearningCurve curriculum for data governance to address today’s realities. John Ladley’s new courses How to Deploy Data Governance, parts 1 and 2, specifically address governance as a set of practices, and not as a rigid methodology. John also discusses the factors that need to be considered to deploy governance in a way that is appropriate to your organization’s size and culture. My Modernizing Data Governance course focuses extensively on the human side of governance, starting with the assumption that most people want to do the right thing. Our job in governance is to help them know what the right thing is and make it easy to get it right. And, of course, we have updated the Data Governance Fundamentals course to reflect these new perspectives about data governance.

New & Updated Courses

Modernizing Data Governance

By Dave Wells

This 3-hour online training explores how governance fits within modern data ecosystems, from point of ingestion to reporting and analysis.

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How to Deploy Data Governance: Part 1

By John Ladley

This 3-hour 45-minute course provides the insights and methods to develop your approach start or re-energize your data governance program.

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How to Deploy Data Governance: Part 2

By John Ladley

This 4-hour online training course provides the insights and methods to design how the program will work and operate.

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Data Governance Fundamentals

By Maria Villar, Theresa Kushner, and Dave Wells

This 5-hour course provides an overview of the disciplines of governing data and outlines a roadmap to a successful data governance program.

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New & Notable

eLearningCurve instructor John Ladley has released the second edition of his book How to Design, Deploy and Sustain Data Governance Programs
This book offers an overview of why data governance is needed, how to design, initiative, and execute a program and how to keep the program sustainable.

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