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Wikipedia defines Data Governance as “Data governance is used by organizations to exercise control over processes and methods used by their data stewards and data custodians in order to improve data quality.”

Whereas Wikipedia defines Information Governance “the set of multi-disciplinary structures, policies, procedures, processes and controls implemented to manage information at an enterprise level, supporting an organization’s immediate and future regulatory, legal, risk, environmental and operational requirements. Information governance should determine the balance point between two potentially divergent organizational goals: extracting value from information and reducing the potential risk of information. “

“Information Governance is the activities and technologies that organizations employ to maximize the value of their information while minimizing associated risks and costs.” Information Governance Initiative, “Information Governance Initiative Annual Report 2015-2016” (Information Governance Initiative LLC., September 2015)

Typically Data Governance focuses an organization’s data assets, such as the Enterprise Data Warehouse. This focus is only a slice of the organization’s information assets, and is only part of the life-cycle management of information assets. As we analyze the entire range of data within the organization, we start to see that similar data typically resides in many locations and in many formats.

Data Governance often resides in the Information Technology (IT) realm. It is often focused on metadata related to data attributes, how they are stored, their lineage, etc. The focus is on data. While this is very important and useful information for the IT organization, it doesn’t always provide visible and real value to executives or people working in the business outside of IT. Advancements of Data Governance into the business realm have been focused on the control and stewardship of specific data assets.

Information Governance fully encompasses Data Governance, but expands the scope across the enterprise and begins to focus on all information assets, structured and unstructured. Information, not just the data, is seen as a corporate asset. When Information Governance becomes linked with corporate strategy, bringing sustainability and a new level of relevance to the discipline, information governance transforms into a game changer for the organization.