The Biggest Bug in the Manure Pile
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are very common within IT, and I’m sure most of you deal with these every day. Most address things like software availability, hardware up time, service response rates and so on. SLA and data quality almost never get mentioned in the same sentence. But arguably, data quality is the most important aspect to the overall service provided by IT.
Data governance just might be the biggest governance issue facing IT today. (It’s hard to say for sure though, since there are so many to choose from.) I can’t think of any businesses today that are not reliant on high quality information to support their business. Today’s businesses might be able to get by for a short time without high quality data, but eventually individual productivity and eventually company performance are absolutely dependent upon high quality information.
Poor quality data can have a negative impact on the business in a variety of ways. For example, it could cause your business to be out of compliance with regulations or it could cause fraudulent transactions to take place. These are probably a bit obvious.
But one very nasty consequence of poor quality data is that the users of that data can lose confidence in the data. Not all of the data has to be incorrect for this to happen. In fact, it can be a relatively low error rate that establishes a pervasive distrust of the data. For example, if I learn that 5% of the data is incorrect but I don’t know which 5%, I can’t trust any of it. This will result in decisions being made without the benefit of data to support those decisions. At the very least, mistakes will be made and business opportunities will be missed.
The bottom line is that a data governance program is essential in helping organizations provide high quality information to support decision making at all levels of the company. Data governance is a huge topic, much bigger than what I will even begin to address here. But I can introduce the components of a data governance program.
They are:
Policy, standards and strategy
Data quality
Privacy, compliance and security
Architecture integration and analysis
Data warehouse and business intelligence
Management alignment
To learn everything you would ever want to know about data governance and more, you can go here. The information is a bit tough to digest, but it’s all here. A quick Google search will produce dozens of additional sites on data governance too.
Is it true that most of you are not talking about data governance? Or do I simply need to get out more?
Data governance just might be the biggest governance issue facing IT today. (It’s hard to say for sure though, since there are so many to choose from.) I can’t think of any businesses today that are not reliant on high quality information to support their business. Today’s businesses might be able to get by for a short time without high quality data, but eventually individual productivity and eventually company performance are absolutely dependent upon high quality information.
Poor quality data can have a negative impact on the business in a variety of ways. For example, it could cause your business to be out of compliance with regulations or it could cause fraudulent transactions to take place. These are probably a bit obvious.
But one very nasty consequence of poor quality data is that the users of that data can lose confidence in the data. Not all of the data has to be incorrect for this to happen. In fact, it can be a relatively low error rate that establishes a pervasive distrust of the data. For example, if I learn that 5% of the data is incorrect but I don’t know which 5%, I can’t trust any of it. This will result in decisions being made without the benefit of data to support those decisions. At the very least, mistakes will be made and business opportunities will be missed.
The bottom line is that a data governance program is essential in helping organizations provide high quality information to support decision making at all levels of the company. Data governance is a huge topic, much bigger than what I will even begin to address here. But I can introduce the components of a data governance program.
They are:
To learn everything you would ever want to know about data governance and more, you can go here. The information is a bit tough to digest, but it’s all here. A quick Google search will produce dozens of additional sites on data governance too.
Is it true that most of you are not talking about data governance? Or do I simply need to get out more?
Category IT Governance
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Comments
Since joining Teamstudio I have been surprised by the lack of responsibility the average developer accepts when it comes to data quality, even the average admin tends to not be too keen to tackle the behemoth that is data integrity.
In my opinion, you have hit the nail on the head in terms of the importance of providing accurate, reliable information to the users. It has a more direct impact on the business than pretty much any other aspect of an IT dept's requirements.
Posted by Grant Norman At 05:10:23 AM On 04/24/2009 | - Website - |