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Regardless of how you define Information Governance, it's evolved beyond a process

Information Governance is like the blind men and the elephant. Depending on which part of the elephant you touch, people define Information Governance to include master data management, data stewardship, data quality management, metadata management, business glossaries, information lifecycle management and security and privacy.

These definitions are somewhat correct but they are incomplete. Information governance is the discipline of treating data as an enterprise asset. It is about setting policy, as opposed to Information Management which is about the tools.

Let us take an example. The customer service department at a utility wanted to improve the accuracy of billing addresses. The U.S. Postal Service will grant discounts to bulk mailers for more accurate ZIP+4 postal codes. In addition, an increase in the accuracy of billing addresses results in customers receiving their bills faster, and the utilities get paid faster.

The practice of Information Governance is about setting policy around the metrics – such as the percentage of returned mail items – used to monitor the accuracy of billing addresses. In addition, the Information Governance program will set policy around the acceptable threshold of data quality.

For example, it might be uneconomical to reduce the percentage of returned mail below 2%. Information Management is about using the appropriate data quality tools (such as IBM InfoSphere Quality Stage) to standardize billing addresses.

The "anything and everything" nature of Information Governance can be a challenge for practitioners. So why do I think that Information Governance is a market?

Well, organizations are starting to appoint full-time or part-time owners of information governance. In the past two weeks, I have had three clients approach me to see if IBM can recommend anybody with strong skills to fill a Data Governance position.

Just go to a social networking tool like LinkedIn and do a search on “information governance” or “data governance.” You will see thousands of hits for individuals with information governance or data governance in their title. These individuals are not always 100% devoted to Information Governance.

But there is an increasing trend of companies posting jobs for full-time Information Governance leaders within the organization. Much like in the early days of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), there appears to be a marketplace and practitioner community that is coalescing around Information Governance.

I recently published a book called The IBM Data Governance Unified Process that lists the steps to implement an Information Governance program, along with the associated software tools and best practices from IBM.

Finally, after many years in the wilderness, I believe that Information Governance is now a market. We have a strong practitioner community, a great set of software tools, and best practice methodologies to pull it all together.