Introducing the Power BI governance and best practices series

In my experience working in IT industry from early 2000 one aspect of dealing with data that is always taken very seriously is data governance.

For many years the industry learned how important it is to have a data governance process in place to keep your data safe and healthy so you get the most out of your data. Power BI is no different to any other data platforms, so data governance is an important part of it. However, the concept of self-service data management which offers all the beauties and power an agile approach caused some organisations not to think about their governance approach from the outset.

On the other hand, some people find governance as a burden which slows down the adoption. Some people think even worse, they think governance is a stopper which puts a lot of unnecessary restrictions in place which decreases efficiency.

But in reality if you start data governance planning sooner than later you can protect your organisation from a lot of risks down the road which can get really nasty and costly like:

• Risk of law suits due to data leakage and privacy issues
• Untrusted data analysis and reporting due to poor quality of data
• Poor performing solution due to lack of auditing
• Inefficient development outcomes due to undefined environments

Not only does governance can help organisations to protect their data more effectively, but it also can increase peoples’ efficiency.

So I decided to post a series of blogs to share my experience and thought with everyone who follows my website. In this series I will discuss both aspects, governance and adoption of Power BI ecosystem. My approach in these series is to cover below:

• Why we need governance and adoption and what needs to be done to have a successful outcome. These posts’ focus is not too technical. We’ll discuss the “why” we need to do this and “what” steps needed to be taken
• How we get it done. These posts on the other hand will be more technical showing different approaches of how to physically implement the approach

This series is intended to cover the key things you need to know about data governance, but there are many details that may be unique to your implementation.

If you need assistance, we do offer consulting services to help fast track your progress.