The purpose of any data governance framework is to improve the quality of the data. Therefore when an organisation initiates the data governance process, it is important to incorporate a data quality issue resolution process.
“Resolving Issues” is deemed as a key Governance process by the DGI Data Governance Framework. The laid out process of quality issue resolution elaborate clear and standardised steps for resolving data related issues.
It should be crafted in such a way to support regulatory and compliance requirements for Data Management, Privacy, Security, and Access Management. Record-keeping should provide a clear history of which stakeholders were involved in resolving an issue, what resources/analysis were used, and what alternatives were considered.
The issue resolution process is based on the root-cause analysis. The focus is to identify the source of the issue and work on the remedy of the root cause. One of the major components of this process is the data quality issue log. An issue log is a tool in which the data governance team uses throughout the issue resolution process.
It supports the team in investigating and resolving the issue and monitoring and updating on the progress. Each issue log can be unique for individual businesses.
Data quality issue resolution process consist of the following steps:
· Issue identification
The data quality issue is usually identified by a data consumer who will notify it further to the relevant authority, usually the data governance team. The concerned data owner will be identified and notified regarding the issue. The data governance team will put up the issue description, details of the data owner, the date when the issue was raised along with the name and department of the data consumer who identified the issue on the issue log.
· Identify the impact and prioritise
The data governance committee will review the issue and assess its impact. Once all involved stakeholders agree on the impact, the issue resolution priority will be decided. The impact will be logged into the issue log. The data governance team will work with the data owner to find the root cause of the issue. Remedial action will be directed with the agreement of the data governance team and committee and the data owner. The remedial action should be such that the issue is resolved completely and does not reoccur.
· Tracking
The issue log is updated with an agreed remedial action plan, target resolution date or any other major progress. Once the remedial action plan initiates, the data governance team will stay in the loop of the on-going progress against target dates and data users’ expectations. Once the issue resolves the issue status on the issue log will be marked as closed.
It is a given that the issue resolution process is not limited to these three steps and can be further broken down into many more blocks. Yet the major chunk of the process includes identifying and monitoring the issue and maintaining an issue log.
It is strongly advised to keep the issue resolution process as simple as possible and keep the communication lines open and clear.