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16 CHAPTER 2 Definitions and concepts

Principles

At the heart of effective governance are organizational principles. The DMBOK defines them as:
1. A fundamental law, doctrine, premise, or assumption
2. A rule or code of conduct

Principles are statements of philosophy. Think of them as a bill of rightsdcore beliefs that form the
anchor for all policies and behaviors around information asset management (IAM). They are beliefs to
be applied every day as guidance for procedures and decision-making efforts. Principles are not to be
confused with policies (see the following) or rules. Often we see organizations lay out a set of rulesda
blend of philosophy, policy, process, and enforcement. This is not an ideal approach; rules do not have
the weight of belief, and they are hard to maintain and are inflexible. Data governance is a behavior
change, not process revisionism. It may seem heavy handed, but going about it with the structure
shown in Figure 2-5 pays off over the long term.
Principles are significant enough that we designed an overarching set of principles that are
deliberately modeled on and placed alongside GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
GAAP and the United States Financial Accounting Standards Board set forth the essential and
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mandatory principles and standards for financial accounting. Called GAIP (Generally Accepted
Information Principles), we urge clients to incorporate these as essential components of their prin-
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ciples. Figure 2-6 presents a summary of GAIP .
Policies

Policies (or policy) are an area in the field of data governance that can be helpful or destructive for
a new data governance function. The definition from DMBOK seems simple:
“A statement of a selected course of action and high-level description of desired behavior to achieve
a set of goals.”
However, it is too easy for new data governance functions to spew policy without any substance.
The real essence of policy is that it is a codification of principles. Policies are enforceable processes.
Principles tend to be too lofty to enforce directly. Policies need to be repeatable, and easily trained.
Standards, which are important to governance, are a type of policy, or even a characteristic of
a particular policy, such as data naming standards or data quality standards.

FIGURE 2-5
Structure of Principles and Policies.