---
name: data-governance-gap-identifier
description: "Assesses current data governance practices against a six-pillar best-practice framework (ownership, stewardship, lineage, quality, access, compliance) and returns a prioritized gap register with severity ratings, business risk, and a phased remediation roadmap. Use when auditing a data governance program, preparing for a maturity assessment, building a governance business case, or diagnosing why data trust, compliance, or quality issues keep recurring."
argument-hint: "[current-practices] [regulatory-scope]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Data Governance Gap Identifier

## Purpose
Compare an organization's current data governance practices against a structured six-pillar framework and produce a prioritized gap register — each gap scored for severity and business risk, with a phased remediation roadmap — so leaders know exactly what is missing, what to fix first, and why it matters.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Audit or assess an existing data governance program against best practice
- Identify what's missing before a regulatory audit or maturity assessment
- Build the business case or roadmap for governance investment
- Diagnose recurring data quality, access, or compliance problems
- Prioritize which governance capabilities to build first with limited resources
- Establish a baseline before standing up a new governance function

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Current practices**: Description of how governance works today across any of the six pillars — even partial or informal
- **Organization size & data footprint**: Headcount, number of key systems/data domains, on-prem vs. cloud
- **Regulatory scope**: Which regimes apply (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOX, PCI-DSS, industry-specific)
- **Existing roles & tooling**: Any named data owners/stewards, catalog, quality, or lineage tools in place
- **Known pain points**: Incidents, audit findings, or complaints that prompted this review
- **Program maturity goal**: Where they want to be (foundational / managed / optimized) and by when

If regulatory scope or maturity goal is missing, assume GDPR/CCPA applicability and a "foundational to managed" target, and note the assumption.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Map Current State Across the Six Pillars
For each pillar, extract what exists today from the inputs and classify it. Do not assume absence — flag as "Unknown" if the input is silent rather than scoring it as a gap.

**Pillar 1 — Ownership**
Accountable data owners assigned to domains, decision rights defined, governance council/committee exists with a charter.

**Pillar 2 — Stewardship**
Operational stewards named per domain, defined responsibilities, business glossary/definitions maintained, steward time formally allocated.

**Pillar 3 — Lineage**
Data flows documented from source to consumption, transformations tracked, impact analysis possible, lineage automated vs. manual.

**Pillar 4 — Quality**
Quality dimensions defined (accuracy, completeness, timeliness, consistency, validity, uniqueness), SLAs/thresholds set, monitoring in place, remediation workflow exists.

**Pillar 5 — Access**
Role-based access control, least-privilege enforcement, access review cadence, classification/sensitivity tiers, provisioning/deprovisioning process.

**Pillar 6 — Compliance**
Regulatory obligations mapped to controls, retention/deletion policies, consent/subject-rights handling, audit trail, evidence collection for auditors.

For each pillar, assign a maturity level: **Absent / Ad hoc / Defined / Managed / Optimized.**

### Step 2: Identify Gaps Against Best Practice
For each pillar, compare current maturity to the target maturity level. Write each gap as a discrete, specific finding — not "improve quality" but "no defined completeness thresholds for customer records; errors surface only at reporting time."

Every gap must state:
- **What exists now** (current state)
- **What best practice requires** (target state)
- **The delta** (the specific missing capability)

### Step 3: Score Severity and Business Risk
Rate each gap on two axes:

- **Severity** (Critical / High / Medium / Low):
  - Critical — active regulatory exposure, unmanaged access to sensitive data, or no accountability for a regulated domain
  - High — recurring quality/trust failures affecting decisions, or missing controls an auditor would flag
  - Medium — inefficiency or manual workaround that scales poorly
  - Low — hygiene or documentation gap with limited near-term impact
- **Business risk statement**: One sentence naming the concrete consequence (fine, failed audit, wrong decision, breach, rework cost).

Weight compliance and access gaps upward where regulatory scope is high.

### Step 4: Prioritize
Order all gaps by a priority score combining severity and remediation effort (Low/Medium/High effort). Surface **quick wins** (high severity, low effort) explicitly — these lead the roadmap.

### Step 5: Build a Phased Remediation Roadmap
Group prioritized gaps into three horizons:
- **Phase 1 — Stabilize (0–90 days)**: Critical gaps and quick wins; assign owner accountability, close the highest regulatory exposure
- **Phase 2 — Operationalize (3–9 months)**: Standing up stewardship, quality monitoring, lineage, access review cadences
- **Phase 3 — Optimize (9+ months)**: Automation, metrics/dashboards, continuous improvement

For each phase, state the outcome achieved and the pillars advanced.

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Current-state maturity summary table → gap register table → prioritized quick wins → phased roadmap
- **Length**: 1,000–1,400 words
- **Format**: Tables for the maturity summary and gap register; numbered/grouped lists for roadmap
- **Sections**: Six-Pillar Maturity Summary → Gap Register (with severity + risk) → Quick Wins → Phased Remediation Roadmap → Executive Summary (3–4 sentence bottom line)
- **Tone**: Director-level, evidence-based, direct — states risk plainly without alarmism; every finding is actionable

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] All six pillars are assessed and assigned a maturity level (count them)
- [ ] Every gap includes current state, target state, and the specific delta — no vague "improve X" findings
- [ ] Every gap has both a severity rating and a one-sentence business risk statement
- [ ] Silent inputs are marked "Unknown," not scored as gaps by default
- [ ] Gaps are ranked by priority, and quick wins (high severity / low effort) are called out explicitly
- [ ] The roadmap sorts every prioritized gap into one of the three phases with a stated outcome

## Notes
- Ownership and accountability gaps are almost always the root cause behind quality, access, and compliance failures — resolve owners first, or downstream fixes won't hold
- When regulatory scope is broad, treat any unmanaged access to sensitive data as Critical regardless of stated maturity
- If the current-state description is thin, a maturity summary heavy on "Unknown" is itself a finding — recommend a discovery workshop as Phase 1 action zero
- Resist over-scoping Phase 1; stabilization only succeeds when it targets the two or three gaps that carry the most risk

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## How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

**Installing in Claude Code:**
- `~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
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Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

**Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:**

1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

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