One of my clients recently asked how often they should be assessing their Data Governance maturity. It’s a great question because many people underestimate how long Data Governance takes to implement and a maturity assessment is a useful tool to track progress and figure out what to focus on next.

In today’s blog, I’ll be exploring Data Governance maturity assessments in more detail.

What is a Data Governance maturity assessment?

A Data Governance maturity assessment helps you see what’s working, where the gaps are, and what needs improving.

But, the timing of carrying out these assessments is important because, as I mentioned above, Data Governance does take longer than you think, so you don't want to overestimate the number of assessments you need. You want to find a balance between making improvements and not overwhelming the team or resources.

How often should you assess maturity?

From my experience, once a year is usually enough. This is because real change takes time. If you assess too soon, you might not see enough progress to justify the effort. Plus, people are busy - you don’t want to keep asking for their time if nothing major has changed.

That said, the timing can depend on how quickly your organisation is evolving. The best approach is to look at what’s been happening internally and decide whether it’s the right time for a reassessment.

Communication and culture

Maturity assessments aren’t just about checking progress - they also reveal how well Data Governance is being communicated across the organisation.

When you're looking at the results of a Data Governance maturity assessment, don't take every result to mean that you're not doing certain things - it might be your communication at fault rather than the fact that you haven't done something!

I remember times during my early career in Data Governance when I'd got results back from a maturity assessment and had been devastated because it stated that we hadn't done something that we had actually worked really hard on doing! I remember thinking, ‘We've done that. Why are they saying there are no data owners in this area? There clearly are!’

And then when I actually thought about it, I realised that yes, we'd done the work as a Data Governance team but what we hadn't done was communicate it to the wider audience. And the problem with this is that Data Governance doesn't work unless everybody's on board. You need to make a culture change and for that, you need to communicate. If people don’t know what you’ve achieved it’s as though it hasn’t happened for them!

Data Governance maturity assessments are brilliant tools for guiding and measuring the progress of an organisation's Data Governance efforts. However, they are most valuable when done at a pace that aligns with the organisation's ability to make change. Whether done every six months or annually, the focus should always be on actionable steps and creating a culture that values data as a business asset.

As always, if you have any questions or need further support with optimising your Data Governance initiatives, feel free to book a call with me using the button below.

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