INFORMATION STEWARDSHIP

Am Saiyavath

Christopher Taylor

Teng Fei Liao

Defining information stewardship

Information stewardship pervades a business. The steward oversees information throughout its life cycle, regardless of how it's used, who owns it, where it resides and more. Stewardship means data-quality management, data security, auditable compliance with privacy and disclosure guidelines, information life-cycle management (ILM), and business-continuity planning and disaster recovery, according to Nemertes.

A framework for information stewardshipExperts suggest several components for success

Holistic view by CIO or other top network executive of business and IT operations.

Sustained executive buy-in and active support for the strategy. Alignment with business processes as opposed to traditional

silo approach. Elaborate approach to change-management that includes

administration, professional education and training with ongoing follow-up, methodology or common framework to execute the work and common enterprise system.

An understanding of information- ownership issues. The information steward champions the strategy but does not own the information.

Steps to take In putting together a framework for successful information

stewardship, the CIO or other top network executive needs to make clear to the business how information and business processes mesh together. This executive then champions the strategy but doesn't own the information - that's an important distinction, Cullen says.

While taking a leadership role, the CIO also should put together a management or steering council with key business-unit leaders represented, Allen says. But she cautions that not every C-level executive at midsize and large companies should make information stewardship a top priority. "Key is deciding where information management needs to fit on the list of [that company's] priorities," she says.

Thank you