Mastering Data Management

More in Business Process Management

• New ebook: Understanding Big Data
• 37 Definitions of “Employee ID”
• Defining Terms: Agree, or Doom your Project
• Establishing a Valid Business “Need to Know” for Sensitive Data

More in MDM

• Best Practices in Test Data Management: Discovering and Subsetting
• TDWI Chicago Preview: Data Warehousing, Analytics & More
• Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Data?
• MDM for Chief Privacy Officers: A healthcare provider example

More from Amar Ramakrishnan

• Should Stockholders Demand MDM?
• MDM Mashups: All the Taste with None of the Calories
• Why Every Citizen Should Care About MDM
• Downright Dangerous: Decisions Based on Flawed Data

Share this Post

Recent Comments

• ICMCC News Page » Where East Meets West: ehealth in China and the US on Where East Meets West: ehealth in China and the US
• Kim’s Training Podcast on Training as a Safety Net: Kim May
• TDWI Chicago Preview: Data Warehousing, Analytics & More | Mastering Data Management on New ebook: Understanding Big Data

Initiate's Amar finds a data governance hero that offers data quality hope

Recently, I was on the phone scheduling an energy audit and attic check for my house. If you know Texas summers, you know that any little thing you can do to fight the heat is a HUGE win for you.

I was on the phone with Stacey (not her real name) with Strand Brothers (not made up) trying to schedule a visit. She said something that caught my attention and made me smile. She asked for my street address and was looking for a prior visit. I let her know that we had never used Strand Brothers since we purchased the house.

She said “Well, I like to make sure we have no prior records of your residence. I hate creating duplicate records.” Those are magic words for a MDM nerd like me. (After all, I do work for Initiate, an IBM Company.)

Once we were finished with our usual procedure to set up an appointment, I asked Stacey if I could have a few minutes of her time to interview her. She was speechless and it took me a while to realize she was not used to this exchange from a prospect but after a little bit of reassurance, she acquiesced.

The ensuing conversation was an encouraging experience for me. Stacey pointed out that she loathes having duplicate data. She always checks to make sure there are no existing accounts before she creates a new one. She said they use a local database to create customer accounts and a centralized central database for scheduling appointments.

Often times, depending on the customer or the sales person, they leave out small but relevant information. For example, “East Main Street” is put into the system as “main st.” Stacey makes sure that this does not lead to a duplicate customer account.

I asked her why this matters and she immediately replied with “it annoys the customer when multiple marketing or sales people call or contact them with the same information.”  I was blown away!

Let me recap this in the formal painful language we love to use within the industry:

1. She knew the information architecture. One local database for accounts and a central database for appointments.
2. She knew the pain and business drivers. Angry customers are bad for business.
3. Her innate data governance skills are at a Jedi level. Prevention is better than cure; I HATE creating duplicates.
4. She understood how data integrity is affected. East Main Street was stored as Main Street.

She did this without any formal training or a DG medal. She gives me hope. MDM is a ubiquitous problem, and not all companies need complex solutions but they do need to be aware of the problem.

I hope there are more Staceys out there. I do think all of us “Industry Speak” people in MDM should learn to communicate like Stacey.

Have you found a data governance hero in your day-to-day interactions? Is there hope for better data quality?