Data Governance

There really is something to be said about dividing up your council to work on separate issues and then reconvening to discuss and approve the results. I’ve used this technique recently for some of the issues on our tracking sheet that ‘just won’t go away’. You probably have these too… whether they be important but nagging issues with the legacy systems or a business unit who just won’t respond so you can close something out. In any case, over time, these outstanding issues will multiply and the best method I’ve found it so assign them out to your stewards to have them worked on. I’ve also found that there are a few keys to success when doing this.
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On the first day at the Information and Data Quality Conference, I attended the session, “Using Data Profiling for Proactive Data Quality Improvement“. That session was for the first half of the day, so for the second half I attended the Len Silverston session titled “Power and Politics in Data Quality Improvement Efforts“. This was a great session that had very little to do with data theory and data management, and a lot to do with interoffice dynamics. The session opened up with the question, “What is the biggest problem in data quality today?” Many good answers were tossed out by the attendees, but I think the answer that Len submitted trumped them all… read on for the answer.
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