The Data Inventory: Know What You Have

You can't govern data you can't see.

A data inventory is simply a list of what data your organization holds, where it lives, and why you have it. That's it. It doesn't need expensive software. A spreadsheet works. One row per dataset, with columns for what it is, where it lives, whose data it is, and what it's used for.

Why does this come first? Because every other data habit depends on it. You can't minimize what you haven't mapped. You can't set retention for data you don't know exists. You can't answer "what do you have on me?" if you've never taken stock.

Most teams are surprised by their first inventory. Shadow spreadsheets. Old exports. A vendor nobody remembers signing up for.

Start with the list. Everything else gets easier after that.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.