xhverse.co

Governance tool

Governance Readiness Scorecard

Are you ready to implement a governance program? This tool evaluates organizational readiness across sponsorship, policy, tooling, process, and regulatory dimensions.

This assessment evaluates readiness to govern — not current maturity. Use the Maturity Checker for platform maturity assessment.

Assessment

Rate your current state honestly.

Choose the option that best describes your organization today — not where you plan to be.

01 · Sponsorship & Ownership

Is there an identified executive sponsor for data governance?

1. No sponsor identified 2. Informal champion but no formal mandate 3. Named sponsor with partial authority 4. C-level sponsor with budget and mandate

02 · Sponsorship & Ownership

Are data ownership roles clearly assigned across domains?

1. No defined owners — ad hoc responsibility 2. Some owners named but roles are unclear 3. Owners assigned with documented responsibilities 4. Owners accountable with regular review cadence

03 · Sponsorship & Ownership

How is governance funded?

1. No dedicated funding 2. Funded as part of IT budget without clear allocation 3. Dedicated budget line item 4. Multi-year funded program with headcount

04 · Sponsorship & Ownership

Is there a clear accountability structure for governance decisions?

1. Decisions happen informally or not at all 2. A committee exists but meets irregularly 3. Regular governance board with defined authority 4. Multi-tier structure (strategic + operational) with escalation paths

05 · Policy & Standards

Does a data classification scheme exist?

1. No classification scheme 2. Informal labels used inconsistently 3. Defined scheme applied to critical datasets 4. Comprehensive scheme enforced with automated tagging

06 · Policy & Standards

Are data retention policies documented and enforced?

1. No retention policies 2. Policies exist but not enforced 3. Policies enforced for regulated data 4. Comprehensive policies with automated lifecycle management

07 · Policy & Standards

Are data quality rules defined for key datasets?

1. No quality rules defined 2. Ad hoc checks on some pipelines 3. Systematic rules for critical data products 4. Comprehensive DQ framework with SLAs and alerting

08 · Policy & Standards

Is data lineage tracked across your platform?

1. No lineage tracking 2. Manual documentation for some flows 3. Automated lineage for key pipelines 4. End-to-end automated lineage with impact analysis

09 · Tooling & Catalog

Is a data catalog deployed and actively used?

1. No catalog tool 2. Tool deployed but low adoption 3. Catalog used by data teams for discovery 4. Catalog is the single source of truth, used org-wide

10 · Tooling & Catalog

Is access management automated or manual?

1. Fully manual (tickets, emails) 2. Partially automated with manual approval 3. Automated provisioning with policy-based rules 4. Self-service access with automated classification enforcement

11 · Tooling & Catalog

Is PII/sensitive data scanning in place?

1. No scanning capability 2. Manual audits performed occasionally 3. Automated scanning on ingest for known patterns 4. Continuous scanning with auto-classification and masking

12 · Tooling & Catalog

How integrated is your governance tooling with the data platform?

1. Completely separate systems 2. Some manual integration points 3. API-level integration with key platform components 4. Native platform integration (e.g., Unity Catalog, Purview)

13 · Process & Culture

Is there an active data stewardship community?

1. No stewards identified 2. Stewards named but inactive 3. Active stewards with regular meetings 4. Stewardship network with defined workflows and metrics

14 · Process & Culture

Is there a change management process for data assets?

1. No change management — changes happen ad hoc 2. Informal notification for breaking changes 3. Defined process with impact assessment 4. Versioned contracts with consumer notification and migration support

15 · Process & Culture

How is data governance training handled?

1. No training available 2. Ad hoc onboarding for new team members 3. Structured training program for data roles 4. Continuous education with role-specific certification paths

16 · Process & Culture

Is there an incident response process for data issues?

1. No defined process — firefighting mode 2. Basic escalation path exists 3. Defined severity levels with response SLAs 4. Full incident lifecycle with postmortems and prevention

17 · Regulatory Exposure

How regulated is your industry?

1. Minimal regulation 2. Light regulation (general GDPR/privacy) 3. Moderately regulated (financial, healthcare adjacent) 4. Heavily regulated (banking, pharma, government)

18 · Regulatory Exposure

Do you have cross-border data flows?

1. Single country operations 2. Regional with limited cross-border 3. Multi-region with data residency requirements 4. Global operations with complex jurisdictional rules

19 · Regulatory Exposure

How frequently are you audited on data practices?

1. Never been audited 2. Annual internal review 3. Regular external audits (annual or biannual) 4. Continuous compliance monitoring with frequent external audits

20 · Regulatory Exposure

Is consent and preference management in place?

1. No consent management 2. Basic cookie consent only 3. Consent tracked for key data collection points 4. Comprehensive preference center with downstream enforcement