Data Ownership and Hygiene Guide.

Put someone in charge of each important set of data and set simple rules that keep it clean, because data with no owner rots and dirty data misleads every decision made from it.

After the Data Inventory.

Assign a data owner to each important set

Data set

Owner

A data owner is accountability for the data being right, not a technical role. The owner decides the rules and makes sure they are followed.

Set simple hygiene rules

One agreed way to enter each kind of record (a name, a gift, an address), so the same thing is not stored five ways

One place that is the source of truth for each kind of data, so conflicts have a tie-breaker

A periodic cleanup of duplicates, and a backup so the data cannot be lost

Do a first cleanup of the worst duplication you flagged in the inventory now, so the fresh rules start from a clean base

The boundary on sensitive data

Where the data is sensitive, especially about the people you serve, its legal protection, whether you may hold it and what you owe if it leaks, is the compliance, legal and risk work. This guide keeps it clean; that work keeps it legal.

Clean, owned data is the difference between decisions made on fact and decisions made on a mess. Feeds the Data Trustworthiness Check.

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