Dylan Jones is the founder of Data Quality Pro and Data Migration Pro, popular online communities that provide a range of practical resources and support to their respective professions. Dylan has an extensive information management background and is a prolific publisher of expert articles and tutorials on all manner of data related initiatives.
Here on the Data Roundtable we've discussed many topics such as root-cause analysis, continual improvement and defect prevention. Every organization must focus on these disciplines to create long-term value from data quality improvement instead of some fleeting benefit. Nowhere is this more important than the need for an appropriate education strategy, both in
When you examine where most data quality defects arise from, you soon realise that your source applications are a prime culprit. You can argue that the sales team always enter incomplete address details, or the surgeons can't remember the correct patient type codes but in my experience the majority of
Many managers still perceive data quality projects to be a technical endeavour. Data being the domain of IT and therefore an initiative that can be mapped out on a traditional project plan with well-defined exit criteria and a clear statement of requirements. I used to believe this myth too. Coming
How do you convince executives, frontline workers, middle managers and everyone else in your organization that data quality is a worthwhile activity for them to support? The answer is to tap into their personal motivation. It is one of the most important data quality lessons to master because everything else
Conference season is hotting up in the UK, and there are no doubt lots of practitioners putting the finishing touches to their data quality presentations. One interesting observation I’ve encountered is a high churn rate amongst data quality professionals, particularly within the leadership community. Their decision to quit is not
I was recently asked what I would focus on given limited funds and resources to kickstart a data quality initiative. This is a great question, because I’m sure many readers will find themselves in this position at some point in their career. My answer is to become ruthlessly focused on
In a former life I would often visit sites with literally thousands of plant assets. Each asset was critical to the business not just in terms of capital costs but in the services it provided – and the risks that were caused due to poor maintenance or failure. What was
How do you structure your data migration plan? How do you allocate resources and timescales so that you maximise your chance of success? In this article I want to explore some data migration project planning misconceptions and give you some pointers for an alternative approach. One of the big improvements
When I speak to our members on Data Quality Pro, a lot of their fears revolve around budgetary issues: “Will I be able to create a compelling business case for the finance steering committee?” “Will our funding run out before we complete phase 1?” “How can we hire new staff
If you work in a data quality team then chances are you’ll experience that awkward moment when someone in your organization asks the obvious question: "So what does a data quality team do?" Most people (outside of data quality) find this a relatively straightforward question to answer, but it always
