How can you begin to work with information governance in your organization without make it an administrative nightmare?

My recommendation is that you start with a basic business glossary of business terms.

The example shows the glossary for Artmann Studio & Artmann Media, that I put up on our intranet last week. The list was created with help of AI, and the effort was limited.

Each term is associated with a business capability, and each of them should have a business owner and a data steward.

Next, when implementing governance, you also need to describe the processes used for governance.

To make it simple, I suggest three very basic process flows. 1. Add a new tem, 2. Change an existing term. 3. Revoke a term, make it depreciated.

Being lazy, I asked copilot to create an initial first process that let's everyone suggest a new term. See below.

The Principle: Anyone Can Suggest, Few Can Approve

A scalable glossary process must balance openness and control:

Anyone (employee, contractor, stakeholder) can propose a new term
Data Stewards ensure quality, structure, and consistency
Business Owners validate meaning and approve usage

This separation is critical:

Without openness → innovation stops
Without governance → chaos emerges

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The Add Term Process (Operational Design)

Below is a structured, production-ready process that can be implemented directly in SharePoint with workflow support.

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Step 1 — Submit Term Request

Actor: Requestor (employee, contractor, data steward, business owner)

The process begins when someone identifies a missing concept.

Required input:

Term name
Proposed definition
Business capability (context)
Requestor

The term is stored as a new item in the glossary list.

Status: Draft

👉 Design principle: Lower the barrier to entry. If capturing a term is difficult, it will not be done.

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Step 2 — Triage and Deduplication

Actor: Data Steward

The first responsibility of governance is not enrichment—it is control.

The Data Steward:

Checks for existing terms or duplicates
Validates relevance within the business capability
Assigns ownership

Status: Under Review

👉 Design principle: A glossary without deduplication quickly becomes unusable.

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Step 3 — Enrich and Structure the Term

Actor: Data Steward

At this stage, the term evolves from a suggestion into a managed information asset.

The Data Steward SHALL:

Refine the definition (clear, unambiguous, testable)
Add synonyms and related terms
Classify the term within a taxonomy
Map the term to information objects (e.g., SID entities, logical data objects)

This is where the glossary connects to your information architecture.

👉 Design principle: A term without structure is just text. A structured term becomes reusable knowledge.

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Step 4 — Business Validation

Actor: Business Owner

The Business Owner validates that the term reflects real business meaning.

They SHALL:

Confirm the definition is correct and usable
Ensure alignment with business language and practice
Approve or reject the term

Status:

Approved
or Rejected

👉 Design principle: Only the business can define meaning. Architecture ensures structure—not semantics.

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Step 5 — Publish the Term

Actor: System / Data Steward

Once approved, the term becomes an official part of the enterprise vocabulary.

The system SHALL:

Publish the term for all users (internal and external where relevant)
Assign version = 1.0
Set an effective date

Status: Published

👉 Design principle: If a term is not published and discoverable, it does not exist.

Disruptive architecture