8 Best Data Governance Books Every Data Practitioner Should Read in 2023

Non-Invasive Data Governance: The Path of Least Resistance and Greatest Success by Robert S. Seiner

Amazon | Goodreads

The traditional command-and-control model of data governance doesn’t work. It’s too invasive, and it creates resentment and resistance. Seiner understands this impact and thus produced this book to offer a new, non-invasive approach that has been proven repeatedly to be far more successful.

With this book as your guide, you’ll learn how to implement a non-invasive data governance program that will gain the cooperation and support of your entire organization. You’ll also find out how to avoid the common pitfalls that can doom a data governance program to failure.

Who is it for?

This book will serve you well if you’re part of any data governance policy committee, risk management, or business intelligence team, and are looking for a way to improve your current accountability for data management. The publisher also states that it will help you improve your formal communications, information protection, and overall data quality.

Data Governance: The Definitive Guide by Evren Eryurek, Uri Gilad, Valliappa Lakshmanan, Anita Kibunguchy-Grant, Jessi Ashdown

Amazon | Goodreads

As one of the most highly-rated data governance books, it’s for anyone who wants a comprehensive guide to data governance. It covers everything from data governance principles and practices to tools and techniques.

It starts with the basics, such as defining data governance and its objectives, and then moves on to more advanced topics such as data governance frameworks, roles and responsibilities, and organizational structures.

The book includes case studies and real-life examples of these processes in action, all of which are designed to help you improve efficiency.

Who is it for?

According to the publishers, this book is ideal if you’re a chief information official, security officer, or you otherwise work with data on a higher management level, specifically if you’re working with data in the cloud. Anyone working with security, privacy, and other forms of governing standards would do well to familiarize themselves with the teachings of this book.

Data Governance: Perspectives and Practices by Harkish Sen

Amazon | Goodreads

This book will answer questions like: What is data governance? Why is data governance important? Who is responsible for governing data? How can we improve the fitness of our organization’s data?

This resource is one of the best books on data governance when it comes to insights and approaches you can use to help you take control of your organization’s data. It elaborates on how by assigning responsible parties and ensuring that data remains well-understood and protected, you can improve the overall “data fitness” of your organization.

Who is it for?

You’ll get the most benefit from this book if you’re a professional working in the IT, security, or business sectors, and you aim to bring successful data governance practices to your organization. This particular book takes a very hands-on approach, complete with actionable steps and case studies.

Get Governed: Building World Class Data Governance Programs by Morgan Templar

Amazon | Goodreads

This is the literal textbook for data governance professionals, offering an easy-to-comprehend path toward proper and complete data governance. You’ll quickly see why governance matters as Templar guides you through the benefits this kind of attention to the process can bring to your organization. Within the chapters, you’ll find proof of a clear roadmap to success that will keep you entertained with stories of how data governance has made a difference in the lives of customers, employees, and businesses of all kinds worldwide.

Who is it for?

As the title suggests, this data management book is about building world-class data governance programs, which means if you’re involved with governance programs of any kind, this book is for you. Know more about practices and processes that can be applied to businesses both big and small, and in any industry.

Data Stewardship: An Actionable Guide to Effective Data Management and Data Governance by David Plotkin

Amazon | Goodreads

This data governance book includes the latest strategies in the data stewardship discipline, including integrating it into project management, managing data stewardship in multinational corporations, handling “big data” and data lakes, and reevaluating the data stewardship approach from a business/organizational function to a data domain standpoint.

Who is it for?

This book is predominantly laid out and written with large, international-sized companies in mind. It’s a recommended resource for all organizations that handle big data and/or work with data lakes. If you are in one or your business has invoked a data stewardship role or is planning to in the future, this book is most certainly for you.

The Chief Data Officer Handbook for Data Governance by Sunil Soares

Amazon | Goodreads

Chief Data Officers (CDOs) were developed as a role to deal with the challenge of managing information as a strategic asset in a company, but there is no universal ‘playbook’ for this job. The rapidly growing amount and intricacy of information and data in the modern age, even from smaller businesses, has never before been seen in human history.

What’s more, with the addition to regulatory compliance in regards to information, and its varying counterparts around the world, traversing the world of data is a difficult one.

However, Sunil Soares provides a practical manual that will help CDOs manage information as a resource while providing the trustworthy data required to drive corporate ventures from tactical to transformative. In addition, he also sheds light on the data governance team’s responsibility of establishing policies to optimize, safeguard, and leverage information as a business asset by aligning the objectives of various operations.

Highly rated, this is one of the data governance books no Chief Data Officer will want to miss.

Who is it for?

This data management book is specifically written and published with Chief Data Officers in mind. It’s designed to be the be-all-end-all handbook that details everything a professional in this position needs to know. Judging by the reviews, it does a good job of delivering the promise.

Data governance books: What’s next?

Without a doubt, data governance is a multifaceted process – one that often causes anxiety in organizations. However, it’s worth remembering why data governance is there in the first place, i.e., it’s about helping data teams work better together. If you are championing data governance in your organization, or are just getting started on understanding it, these are a few books that you can definitely turn to.

Atlan: Effortless data governance for the modern data stack

The entire data management space is going through a paradigm shift.

The data world is slowly converging around the best of the tools for processing large amounts of data, a.k.a the “Modern data stack”

Data governance for the “Modern data stack” needs a rethinking.

This is where Atlan comes to your support — A data catalog and data governance solution built for agility, trust, and collaboration.

Read more:The data governance renaissance in the modern data stack!