This comprehensive article explores the role of data stewards in data governance, highlighting their importance in managing data quality, compliance, and accessibility. It covers the different types of data stewards—business, technical, council chair, security, ethics, and more — explaining how each contributes to maintaining and improving an organization’s data management practices. The article also compares data stewards with other roles like data owners and data analysts, providing clarity on their distinct responsibilities. Best practices for effective data stewardship are outlined, emphasizing collaboration between business and technical teams. If you’re looking to understand how data stewards play a key role in your data governance strategy, this guide offers practical insights and valuable advice.
Companies that effectively manage and govern their data not only gain a competitive advantage but also reduce risks associated with non-compliance and data mismanagement. A major role within this framework is that of the data steward. But what exactly is a data steward?
A data steward is responsible for overseeing the management, quality, and governance of an organization’s data assets. They ensure data is accurate, accessible, and secure, enabling organizations to make informed decisions while maintaining regulatory compliance.
In this article, we will explore the role of data stewards in depth, looking at their responsibilities, how they compare to related roles like data owners and data analysts, and their function in data governance frameworks.
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What is a Data Steward? A Definition.
A data steward is a role responsible for managing data assets within an organization, ensuring that they meet quality standards and comply with regulatory requirements. They ensure data is available for analysis, business processes, and decision-making.
Main Responsibilities of a Data Steward
- Data Quality Management: Ensure data accuracy, completeness, and consistency across the organization.
- Metadata Management: Maintain and update metadata, ensuring all relevant parties can understand and use the data effectively.
- Policy Enforcement: Implement and enforce data governance policies across different departments.
- Data Security and Compliance: Ensure data is stored, accessed, and shared in compliance with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.
- Collaboration with Stakeholders: Work with data owners, data analysts, and IT teams to ensure data meets organizational needs.
Why Is a Data Steward Important in Data Governance?
Data governance provides a framework to control and manage data within an organization with data stewards playing an important role in this framework by:
- Ensuring data quality is maintained across different business units.
- Facilitating compliance with data protection laws.
- Acting as liaisons between technical teams and business stakeholders, ensuring that the data serves its intended business purposes.
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Types of Data Stewards
Not all data stewards fulfill the same function. Depending on their focus, data stewards can be categorized into several distinct roles, each responsible for different aspects of data governance.
Business Data Steward
A Business Data Steward is responsible for managing data within specific business domains. Their deep understanding of their department’s strategy, customer needs, and collaboration processes makes them invaluable for ensuring data is both accurate and relevant. These stewards provide insights into business metrics, such as customer satisfaction, that technical teams may not fully grasp. For example, in the case of a customer service department, the business steward may manage key customer data like purchase history and customer IDs.
- Key Tasks: Defining data attributes (metadata), ensuring data relevance and accuracy, contributing to data models and dictionaries, and overseeing taxonomy structures within their domain.
Technical Data Steward
A Technical Data Steward focuses on the systems, pipelines, and technical processes behind data governance. While business stewards concentrate on how data is used in decision-making, technical stewards ensure that data moves efficiently between systems and that the underlying infrastructure is robust and secure.
- Key Tasks: Managing data marts, data warehouses, and data lakes; building system integrations; moving data between cloud environments; and ensuring technical implementation aligns with business needs.
Council Chair Data Steward
The Council Chair Data Steward plays a leadership role in the data governance council. This steward leads meetings, represents the council in high-level discussions, and oversees all data-related initiatives. They ensure that data governance projects are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives and that resources are allocated appropriately.
- Key Tasks: Overseeing the data governance council, assigning responsibilities to other stewards, leading data-related projects, and communicating strategic initiatives across departments.
Security Data Steward
A Security Data Steward ensures that all data security measures are in place. They work closely with business and technical stewards to classify data based on its sensitivity and implement security protocols that protect the organization from breaches.
- Key Tasks: Defining security classifications, auditing data environments for security risks, managing security artifacts, and conducting gap analyses to ensure compliance with internal and external security standards.
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Ethics and Transparency Data Steward
An Ethics and Transparency Data Steward focuses on ensuring that data is handled ethically and transparently, following established governance standards. They evaluate the ethical implications of how data is collected, stored, and used, making sure that these practices align with the organization’s mission and legal standards.
- Key Tasks: Writing compliance standards for ethical data use, training employees on data ethics, and ensuring transparency in data practices.
Data Steward vs. Other Roles
One of the most common points of confusion in data governance is how the role of a data steward differs from other similar roles. Below, we’ll break down the key differences between data stewards and related positions such as data owners, data analysts, data custodians, and data administrators.
Data Steward vs. Data Owner
A data owner is typically a high-level executive or department head with responsibility over specific datasets, defining how the data is used, who has access, and ensuring the data aligns with business goals. The data steward, in contrast, focuses more on maintaining the data’s quality, accuracy, and compliance with governance policies.
Data Steward vs. Data Analyst
While data analysts focus on analyzing data to extract insights and inform business decisions, data stewards are concerned with ensuring that the data used by analysts is clean, reliable, and compliant with governance standards.
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Data Steward vs. Data Administrator
A data administrator is more concerned with the technical aspects of managing data infrastructure—ensuring databases are running efficiently, securing the systems, and managing backups. A data steward, however, is focused on the governance and quality of the data itself, ensuring that data is useful, accurate, and properly documented.
Data Steward vs. Data Custodian
A data custodian manages the physical and technical aspects of data storage, security, and availability. Data stewards, on the other hand, are more focused on ensuring that the data complies with governance standards and is used appropriately across the organization.
The Role of Data Stewards in Data Governance
Data stewards are integral to the success of a company’s data governance framework. They ensure that data governance policies are followed throughout the organization, providing a structured approach to managing and using data effectively. Here’s how data stewards contribute to a solid data governance strategy:
Maintaining Data Quality
One of the biggest challenges for organizations is ensuring that their data is clean, accurate, and consistent across different systems. Data stewards take responsibility for data quality management, ensuring that the data is free from errors and ready for use.
Enforcing Compliance
With regulations like GDPR and CCPA, organizations are under increasing pressure to ensure their data practices are compliant. Data stewards help mitigate risks by enforcing data governance policies that adhere to these regulations, thus avoiding costly penalties.
Facilitating Cross-Department Collaboration
Data stewards act as a bridge between different departments such as IT, legal, and business operations, ensuring that data governance policies are uniformly applied. They collaborate with data custodians, analysts, and owners to ensure the organization’s data is managed holistically.
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Data Stewardship Best Practices
For organizations aiming to improve their data governance strategy, implementing effective data stewardship practices is key. Here are some best practices to guide your efforts:
- Define Clear Roles and Responsibilities: Establish clear boundaries between the roles of data stewards, data owners, and data custodians to avoid overlap and confusion.
- Invest in Training and Education: Continuous training for data stewards ensures they are up-to-date with evolving data regulations and governance standards.
- Use Data Governance Tools: Implementing the right data governance tools can help automate many of the data steward’s responsibilities, such as managing metadata and enforcing policies.
- Monitor and Audit Data Regularly: Continuous monitoring and auditing are essential to maintain data quality and regulatory compliance.
Discover More: How to Create a Data Governance Roadmap in 5 Steps
Data Stewards in Data Governance FAQs
Strengthen Your Data Governance with B EYE
Data stewards play an important part in keeping your organization’s data accurate, secure, and compliant with regulations. By managing data across its lifecycle, they help improve decision-making and ensure smooth operations.
However, to maximize the value of your data stewardship efforts, you need a comprehensive approach to data governance that ties everything together. At B EYE, we offer customized data governance solutions tailored to your business needs, ensuring that your data quality, compliance, and analytics are managed effectively. Contact us today at +1 888 564 1235 (or +359 2 493 0393 for Europe) or fill out our form below to receive a free consultation and learn how we can support you in achieving your data governance goals.
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