𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝘆𝗽𝗲. 𝗪𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹.

Everyone seems to recommend federated governance. Over the last few years, it has become the model everyone talks about. But that doesn't mean it's the right choice for every organization.

The right model depends on your maturity, your organization and the problems you're trying to solve.

A 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 usually works best when governance is new, regulations are strict, data quality is inconsistent or ownership is still unclear. It helps create common standards, shared definitions and consistent ways of working.

A 𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 works best when business domains already have strong ownership, dedicated data teams and enough maturity to make decisions locally. The central team defines the guardrails and the domains own execution.

I've seen organizations adopt a federated model far too early. Instead of becoming more agile, they ended up with different rules across domains, duplicated work and long discussions to reach simple decisions.

In many companies, governance becomes more federated as maturity increases. Building strong foundations first usually leads to better results.

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