Data governance

Governance has a reputation for bureaucracy because it is usually implemented as approval queues. Done properly it is the opposite: it makes data usable without asking anyone.

Start with definitions, not policy

The highest-value governance artifact is a metric dictionary. For each business metric:

• The plain-language definition — what it counts, and what it deliberately excludes.
• The computation, unambiguously: source table, filters, time grain, timezone.
• The owner — a person who decides when it is disputed.
• Known caveats — when it is misleading, and what changed historically.

Most metric disputes dissolve once both parties read the same definition and discover they were measuring different things. Almost none require a policy.

Watch the ones that look obvious. "Active customer," "revenue," and "signup" each have half a dozen defensible definitions, and the ambiguity surfaces at the worst moment.