The primary goal of a data stewardship program is to provide the enterprise with legible, consistent, accurate, documented and timely information about its data resources. Stewardship also ensures that authorized individuals use corporate data correctly and to its fullest potential.

Data stewardship also demystifies the corporate unknowns about the analytic process. It provides resources to resolve data-related questions such as:

• Where do I get this information?

• What does the data mean?

• How does it relate to other data?

• Where did this data come from?

• How frequently is this data updated?

• How reliable is this data?

• How much history do we have for this data?

A key goal is ensuring that data warehousing efforts align with the business strategy. Stewards spend a great deal of time working outside the data warehouse team. They should be available to business users, offering a one-stop source for analytic knowledge. They are the primary resource for business users starting a new analytic process, and they can ensure that these users are going in the right direction, potentially saving hours or days of unproductive effort. The data warehouse team can more quickly deliver new iterations of the data warehouse by relying on steward knowledge. Stewards ensure that the organization can develop consistent fact-based analytic applications.