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IBM data governance maturity model

August 8, 2018

One way of measuring the effectiveness of your data governance program is to assess it against an existing maturity model. This can help by indicating: where you are with the data governance program how you are progressing or not; and what are some of the steps you need to take in order to evolve your …read more

3 types of data quality projects a data steward should work on

August 2, 2018

In “The trifecta of the best data quality management” article, I’ve addressed why a data quality program is needed and what the recurring steps you should always go through are in order to carry on continuous and sustainable efforts to improve and/ or maintain the quality of your data. When it comes to working with the data itself, …read more

5 best practices for managing reference data

Data Governance, Data Stewardship

July 25, 2018

Managing reference data poorly can have a profound impact on your operations as well as business intelligence and analytical outcomes. Here are my 5 best practices for managing reference data: 1. Formalize reference data management (RDM) Most often than not, reference data is not maintained if there is no accountability and ownership determined. Usually the …read more

Data governance council – what is it and why do you need one?

Data Governance, Free Downloads, Master Data Management

July 18, 2018

I get these questions a lot from organizations wanting to start a data governance program or who are in the early stages of planning. A data governance council is a governing body responsible for the strategic guidance of the data governance program, prioritization for the data governance projects and initiatives, approval of organization-wide data policies and standards, …read more

How to create an inventory of your data sources

July 11, 2018

A data sources inventory is meant to record basic information about the different systems across and/or outside your ecosystem from which you are capturing, producing, acquiring or procuring data. The data sources tend to be well known to their end users and administrators, but not so much to the organization as a whole. I believe …read more

Business Intelligence

10 components of the Business Intelligence landscape

July 4, 2018

Data is only meaningful if it serves a purpose. This purpose is to have it transformed into meaningful insight, hindsight, and foresight for an organization to take advantage of. Similarly to how raw materials go through a complex conveyor belt system in a factory before the end product is created, so does the data before …read more

Estimating the cost of poor data quality in 5 steps

June 27, 2018

According to the IBM Big Data & Analytics Hub, poor data costs the US economy $3.1 trillion every year. Ovum Research reported that poor data can cost businesses at least 30% of revenues. These numbers are staggering and in my opinion, they should be enough to motivate any organization to start investing in data governance, …read more

Business Intelligence

5 graphs you should always use

Data Governance, Data Stewardship

June 21, 2018

It’s been long proven that the human process of comprehension and insight is faster with visualizations than with plain numbers or tabular data. Since the 14th century, when Nicole Oresme used a bar chart in “The Latitude of Forms” to plot velocity of a constantly accelerating object against time, charts and graphs have been used …read more

Understanding the different types of a data steward