Data: The Critical Investment
What Can Be Done To Change Attitudes About The Critical Importance Of Data?
As I see it there are three major challenges, regarding data, facing corporations today -
Timeliness, Quality and Cost. All three of which make data a major investment. Our
people need to be made aware of this fact and perform their daily work accordingly.
How Can Attitudes Be Changed?
- Involve data “owners” and “maintainers” in the development process.
- Recognize people for attention to details and hard work.
- Data maintenance is everyone's job and should be a “condition” of
employment.
The corporation's focus should be on:
- People - It's the people that get the job done. We need to educate and work
with them to get the results we want.
- Work Processes - Work processes need to be continually reviewed for
potential improvements. Just when you think they are as efficient as they can
be is when you need to review them again.
- Functional Requirements - Without doing a complete and detailed analysis of
what is really required the systems and people cannot get the job done that
we expect.
- Higher Return” Applications - We need to work toward getting these
applications going first. Which ones give us the highest return on our people
and systems investments?
- Phased” Approaches - Rome wasn't built in a day as the saying goes. We
won't be able to implement solutions to our problems in one veldt swoop
either.
- Total Corporate Commitment - Without executive management's
understanding and support nothing will get accomplished as fully as it could
be with their support.
- Data Maintenance - This is the real key. Once the systems are
implementation and data is converted to support those systems, not
maintaining that data will be disastrous.
In closing, I have attempted to put several items on the table for your consideration.
Some items may create more questions than provide answers and I think that is very
healthy. Some of the points I've made may not pertain to your particular organization.
You may be saying to yourself "We're way beyond all of this" and that's OK too.
However, when you look at your particular situation I think you can agree that Data Truly
Is “The Critical Investment”
