The Data Policies Companion Workbook: A 191 Point Guide to Implementing Successful and Sustainable Data Policies

This workbook is a companion to Successful and Sustainable Data Policies, which is a detailed and comprehensive guide to data policies. As a companion, it is intended to provide readers with a high-level framework to speed up planning for building or strengthening data policy capabilities in their organization.

The Workbook consists of sets of questions that need to be answered. Each set corresponds to a chapter in the main book, and is intended to cover the major points in that chapter. The reader captures their answers in the workbook, and can then turn to the corresponding chapter in the main book to customize their planning at a more detailed level. Additionally, the exercise of answering the questions will help readers better understand the content of the chapter concerned.

Readers do not have to go through the Workbook in any particular order, and should feel free to focus on the chapters that are their priorities. Each chapter also has space for readers to add their own specific questions and notes, as the detailed situation at every organization cannot be fully anticipated.

It is strongly recommended that teams use the Workbook. Each team member can complete one or more sections in their Workbook and then the team can come together to discuss their answers and develop an optimal synthesis for their organization.

Readers should be aware that there is a structure to the Workbook, with Chapters 1-3 being about the general way in which policies are handled in their organization, and general attitudes to data. These set the stage for assessing the overall ease or difficulty that is likely to be encountered as data policy work gets going. From Chapter 4 onwards the questions are specifically about data policies, with a few exceptions.

The questions are structured to orient answers away from the theoretical and towards the situation at hand. They contain the phrase “in my organization” or ask about the Data Governance unit to make sure the reader understands that the answers need to be about the real practicalities and not some ideal state that can probably never be attained.

It is the hope of the author that this Workbook will improve the speed and ease with which data policy work can be performed. Although it comes from a high-level perspective, starting at a high level and then dealing with the detail can be considerably less frustrating than doing things the other way round. Data policies are more important than ever in the modern world, and we need our Data Governance teams to be able to respond effectively to this challenge.