Design Reviews And Governance Boards

Why this matters

Design reviews and governance boards help Data Architects ship safe, scalable solutions while aligning with standards, budgets, and timelines. You will routinely:

• Validate designs for data platforms, pipelines, and models before build.
• Balance speed and risk by setting clear go/no-go criteria.
• Record architectural decisions so teams can trace why choices were made.
• Handle cross-team dependencies, compliance, and privacy constraints.
• Resolve disagreements with transparent, repeatable decision-making.

Real scenarios you will face

• Choosing between streaming vs batch ingestion for a new product analytics pipeline.
• Approving a pattern for PII tokenization across multiple domains.
• Assessing a vendor-managed data lake proposal against cost and lock-in risks.

Concept explained simply

Design reviews are time-boxed checkpoints where a proposed solution is assessed against standards, risks, and goals. Governance boards are the standing groups that own the rules, priorities, and decisions across reviews.

Mental model: Think of product delivery as a runway. Design reviews are the safety checks before takeoff; governance boards are the control tower ensuring every plane uses the runway safely and on schedule.

• Design review: One proposal, specific decision (approve, approve with actions, reject, escalate).
• Governance board: Ongoing forum defining policies, patterns, and exceptions; manages the backlog of design decisions.

Key artifacts you will use

• Architecture Decision Record (ADR) – one-pager capturing context, options, decision, rationale, trade-offs, and consequences.
• Risk register – top risks, severity, mitigation owners, due dates.
• Review checklist – minimum quality gates (security, privacy, cost, reliability, data quality, operability).
• Decision log – history of approvals and exceptions.

A simple framework you can apply today

1. Prepare
   • Clarify the decision to be made and the required inputs (ADR draft, diagrams, volumes/SLA, cost estimate).
   • Invite the right roles (see RACI below).
   • Pre-read sent 2 business days before the session.
2. Run the session
   • Time-box: 45–60 minutes. Start with the decision statement.
   • Walk through risks and trade-offs first; demo if relevant.
   • Capture questions, assumptions, and action items live.
3. Decide & record
   • Decision types: Approve, Approve with actions, Not approve (rework), Escalate.
   • Update ADR and decision log within 24 hours.
4. Follow-through
   • Assign owners and due dates for actions and risk mitigations.
   • Track in a simple action board; re-review only if scope changes or high risks remain.

RACI you can reuse

• Responsible: Solution/Data Architect presenting, Tech Lead.
• Accountable: Architecture Governance Chair or Chief Architect.
• Consulted: Security, Data Privacy, Platform, FinOps, SRE/Operations, Domain Owners.
• Informed: Product, Delivery Manager, Analytics Leads.

Worked examples

Example 1: Streaming user events vs daily batch

• Context: Product analytics needs near-real-time dashboards (<5 min latency).
• Options: A) Kafka + streaming ETL; B) Daily batch via object storage.
• Review focus: Latency, cost, operational complexity, data quality checks.
• Decision: Approve A with actions: add dead-letter queue, define schema evolution policy, cost budget cap with autoscaling.
• ADR snippet: Decision: Streaming via Kafka. Why: Latency requirement. Trade-off: Higher ops complexity mitigated by runbook + alerting SLOs.

Example 2: PII tokenization pattern

• Context: Centralizing customer data across domains; privacy risk high.
• Options: A) In-pipeline masking; B) Dedicated tokenization service; C) Store PII in separate enclave.
• Review focus: Re-identification risk, key management, lineage, developer ergonomics.
• Decision: Approve B. Actions: rotate keys quarterly, enforce column-level lineage tags, add data contract tests.
• ADR snippet: Decision: Dedicated service for consistent, audited tokenization. Consequence: Service dependency; mitigate with HA and runbook.

Example 3: Vendor lakehouse vs DIY

• Context: Team proposes vendor-managed lakehouse to speed delivery.
• Options: A) Vendor fully managed; B) DIY on cloud storage + open table format.
• Review focus: Cost over 3 years, lock-in, governance features, integration with existing platform.
• Decision: Not approve A now; pilot B for 8 weeks with success criteria; revisit with TCO evidence.
• ADR snippet: Decision: Pilot open approach to avoid premature lock-in. Consequence: More initial setup; mitigated by platform enablement sprint.

How to run a design review (template)

Agenda (60 minutes)

• 5 min — Decision statement, context, constraints.
• 10 min — Proposed architecture walkthrough (diagram + data flow).
• 15 min — Risks, trade-offs, and alternatives considered.
• 15 min — Q&A and mitigation brainstorming.
• 10 min — Decision, actions, owners, dates; confirm next checkpoint.
• 5 min — Update ADR/decision log plan.

Required inputs

• ADR draft with clear decision to be made.
• System context diagram and data flow.
• Volumes, SLAs, SLOs, and cost estimate.
• Security/privacy assessment and data classification.
• Operational plan: monitoring, runbook, on-call ownership.

Expected outputs

• Decision type and rationale captured.
• Action list with owners and due dates.
• Updated ADR and risk register within 24 hours.

Decision scale you can adopt

• Approve — Ready to build.
• Approve with actions — Build allowed; actions tracked in parallel.
• Not approve — Rework and return.
• Escalate — Needs senior alignment (e.g., funding, policy exception).

Common mistakes and self-check

• Vague decision statement — fix: start by stating the exact decision.
• Inviting everyone — fix: invite by RACI; keep the group small, inform others.
• No pre-reads — fix: send concise pre-reads 2 days before; enforce.
• Unlogged actions — fix: assign owners/dates live; follow up in 24 hours.
• Policy theater — fix: show how the decision maps to standards and SLOs.
• Endless debate — fix: time-box, use decision scale, capture dissent in ADR.

5-minute self-check

• Can you summarize the decision in one sentence?
• Are top 3 risks, mitigations, and owners named?
• Does the ADR list at least one rejected alternative with rationale?
• Are privacy and security controls explicit for sensitive data?
• Is there a clear trigger for re-review (scope, volume, SLA change)?

Exercises (do these now)

These mirror the interactive exercises below, so you can draft answers here and compare to the suggested solutions.

1. Exercise 1 (matches ex1): Create a one-page design review checklist for a new customer-360 data mart. Include quality gates for security, data quality, cost, scale, and operability.
2. Exercise 2 (matches ex2): Draft a governance board charter (one page). Define purpose, scope, cadence, decision rights, inputs/outputs, and SLAs for decisions.

• Checklist to self-evaluate: Is your checklist specific and testable? Are decision SLAs measurable? Are roles/attendees minimal but complete?

Practical projects

• Project 1: Run a mock review for migrating batch ingestion to CDC. Produce ADR, risk register, and a decision log entry.
• Project 2: Define exception handling for data retention policy across two domains, then simulate an escalation and decision in the log.
• Project 3: Build a lightweight action tracker (spreadsheet) to monitor post-review actions with due dates and status.

Mini challenge

Your team proposes a nightly job processing 5 TB in 2 hours with a hard SLA of 30 minutes for downstream analytics. What do you do?

• Write a one-sentence decision statement.
• List two alternatives and a key trade-off each.
• Propose a decision type (approve/approve with actions/not approve) and top two actions.

Who this is for

• Aspiring or current Data Architects owning solution decisions.
• Tech Leads and Platform Engineers presenting designs.
• Product/Delivery Managers coordinating cross-team work.

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of data platforms (storage, compute, pipelines).
• Familiarity with security/privacy basics (PII, encryption, access control).
• Comfort with reading architecture diagrams and SLAs/SLOs.

Learning path

1. Learn ADRs: write 2–3 ADRs for small design choices.
2. Adopt a review checklist and run a dry-run with your team.
3. Establish a simple governance cadence and decision SLAs.
4. Track actions and publish decisions; gather feedback and refine.

Next steps

• Copy the agenda and checklist; schedule a 30-minute pilot review this week.
• Create your decision log and start capturing outcomes consistently.
• Complete the exercises and quick test to validate your understanding.

Progress and quick test

The quick test for this subskill is available to everyone. If you are logged in, your progress and results will be saved automatically.