How to guide: Become a data steward
If you want to be a data steward, this data governance and data stewardship cheat sheet will help you lay the groundwork for the career you want.
Data governance sets clear standards for data processing while improving the quality and consistency of corporate data. Although the best data governance programs include software or cloud services to support them, much of the responsibility falls on people-centric processes and policies.
At the heart of both data governance tools and processes is the data steward. Data stewards are subject matter experts who take responsibility for day-to-day data management. Although they often work on the business side of data, data stewards work closely with IT to ensure data quality across the enterprise.
As data governance becomes an increasingly hot topic, the role of the data steward becomes more important. Here’s what you need to know to become a data steward.
Jump to:
What is a data steward?
Data stewards are subject matter experts who take responsibility for day-to-day data management related to their business. These stewards are at the forefront of maintaining data quality. They report to the data owners on the ongoing use of data, especially in large projects and corporate initiatives.
SEE: Hiring Kit: Database Engineer (TechRepublic Premium)
A worrying obstacle to their success, as highlighted in a 2022 Zaloni survey of data professionals, is the lack of clear accountability. So while this guide highlights general data governance roles and responsibilities, each organization should ensure that specific responsibilities are identified and made clear to their own data stewards.
What do data stewards do?
Data stewards play a central role in data governance initiatives. They are the ones who help put policy into practice. Your role will encompass a variety of functions, from initiating and recording data standards, acting as a subject matter expert consultant for individual projects, to identifying data quality issues and ensuring data accountability through reporting.
A key role that data stewards can perform is advocacy. We sometimes assume that companies want to use data to improve their customer service, or that they know how to do it. A data steward can effectively evangelize the types of data available and how it can be used by a specific team within a larger organization. Best practices for data and ethical use are core responsibilities of data stewards.
What skills and experience do I need?
expertise
The most important attribute for a data steward isn’t familiarity with Alation or other leading tools. No, the most important qualification is professional competence.
Years ago, Gartner analyst Svetlana Sicular emphasized something similar in the burgeoning world of big data, when talent was in high demand: “Organizations already have people who know their own data better than mystical data scientists…Learning Hadoop is easier than the business.” of the company to learn. ”
Tools are relatively easy to learn. However, deep familiarity with one’s business is difficult and absolutely critical to data management success. Business expertise enables data stewards to more effectively direct efforts that make data accessible when and how the organization needs it.
Ability to communicate with business and technical audiences
Business acumen combined with data literacy enables the data steward to assume a more authoritative role in overseeing the collection, transformation, use, storage and disposal of data. This becomes critical when someone needs to intervene to oversee the classification of data. Of course, this is easier if the data steward is familiar with data science and engineering so they can better represent the business to IT on their own terms.
Strong collaborative skills and ethics
Data stewards need to be very collaborative in their approach to problem solving. Because of their central role in data governance initiatives, they must act as a bridge between IT and the lines of business, and just as often between different lines of business that may want to approach data differently. Because data governance rules can seem mysterious or business-unfriendly, the data steward must also have strong communication skills so that their colleagues understand what they need to do and how they can help the data steward.
SEE: Hiring Kit: Data Scientist (TechRepublic Premium)
Since the data steward is ultimately responsible for ensuring data quality, both business and IT must trust him. When people in an organization want to use data for a new machine learning application or other feature, they need to be confident in the integrity and availability of the data. This is easier when the data steward is viewed as a respected ally, rather than a combative obstacle.
Steps to become a data steward
Although informal training programs are available, the only real qualification is a willingness to try coupled with the above qualities. Data stewards can emerge from both sides of their dual role: protecting data and making it more useful within an organization. As such, we might see a data steward emerge from the regulatory compliance side of the company, but we might also see them emerge from a business unit that has been particularly innovative in using corporate data.
Employment Forecast for Data Steward
We can safely refer to the role in question as “data steward”, but employers have not yet settled on a standardized nomenclature, at least not for job postings. Looking at Glassdoor, there are many jobs that sound like “data steward” but go by other titles like “data governance operations specialist” or “data governance lead.”
As for the evolution of data steward jobs, that’s hard to pinpoint. However, what is not difficult to determine is the overall growth of data governance. According to Mordor Intelligence, the data governance market was worth US$1.81 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to US$5.28 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 20.83% over the forecast period. More broadly, data management recorded $73.1 billion in 2021, according to Expert Market Research, and is expected to reach more than $150.6 billion by 2027.
It’s clear that the volume, variety, and velocity of enterprise data will continue to grow, making the role of the data steward—someone who can help organizations make meaningful use of data—become even more important.
Disclosure: I work for MongoDB, but the views expressed here are mine.