In order to find value in your organization’s data assets, heroic data stewards are tasked with saving the day — every single day! Adhering to the organizational Data Governance (DG) framework, they work to ensure that data is captured right the first time, validated through appropriately automated means, and integrated into business processing. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, data stewards ensure the organization’s mission-critical data is reliably coordinated. This program will approach this framework and punctuate important facets of a data steward’s role.
Data Management and Data Governance are the same thing! Aren’t they? Most people would say that this line of thinking is absurd – or even worse. There is NO WAY that they are the same thing. Or are they?
Join Bob Seiner and Anthony Algmin for a lively, interactive, and entertaining discussion targeted at providing attendees ways to consider relating these two disciplines. You’ve never attended a session like this.
In this session, Bob and Anthony will discuss:
- The similarities between Data Management and Data Governance
- The differences between the two
- How to use Data Management to sell Data Governance … and the other way around
- Deciding if the two disciplines are the same … or different
Data stewards are the implementation arm of Data Governance. They are also the first line of defense against bad data practices. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, data stewards ensure the organization’s shared data is reliably interconnected. Whether starting or restarting your Data Stewardship program, success comes from:
- Understanding the cadence/role of foundational data practices supporting organizational operations
- Proving value with tangible ROI
- Improving effectiveness/efficiencies using organization-wide insight
- Comprehending how stewards need to be multifunctional and dexterous, especially at first
- Integrating the role of data debt fighting
Data-Ed Online: Approaching Data QualityDATAVERSITY
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is of high quality. Determining how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework for utilizing Data Quality management effectively in support of business strategy. This, in turn, allows for speedy identification of business problems, the delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Organizations must realize what it means to utilize Data Quality engineering in support of business strategy. This webinar will illustrate how organizations with chronic business challenges often can trace the root of the problem to poor Data Quality. Showing how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework in which to develop an effective approach. This, in turn, allows organizations to more quickly identify business problems as well as data problems caused by structural issues versus practice-oriented defects and prevent these from re-occurring.
Learning Objectives:
Help you understand foundational Data Quality concepts based on the DAMA Guide to Data Management Book of Knowledge (DAMA DMBoK), as well as guiding principles, best practices, and steps for improving Data Quality at your organization
Demonstrate how chronic business challenges for organizations are often rooted in poor Data Quality
Share case studies illustrating the hallmarks and benefits of Data Quality success
Business Value Through Reference and Master Data StrategiesDATAVERSITY
Data tends to pile up and can be rendered unusable or obsolete without careful maintenance processes. Reference and Master Data Management (MDM) has been a popular Data Management approach to effectively gain mastery over not just the data but the supporting architecture for processing it. This webinar presents MDM as a strategic approach to improving and formalizing practices around those data items that provide context for many organizational transactions — the master data. Too often, MDM has been implemented technology-first and achieved the same very poor track record (one-third succeeding on time, within budget, and achieving planned functionality). MDM success depends on a coordinated approach, typically involving Data Governance and Data Quality activities.
Learning Objectives:
• Understand foundational reference and MDM concepts based on the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBoK)
• Understand why these are an important component of your Data Architecture
• Gain awareness of reference and MDM frameworks and building blocks
• Know what MDM guiding principles consist of and best practices
• Know how to utilize reference and MDM in support of business strategy
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy — Plans Are Useless, but Planning Is InvaluableDATAVERSITY
Too often, I hear the question, “Can you help me with our Data Strategy?” Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on the least valuable component — the Data Strategy itself. A more useful request is, “Can you help me apply data strategically?” Yes, at early maturity phases, the process of developing strategic thinking about data is more important than the actual product! Trying to write a good (much less perfect) Data Strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive — particularly giving the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Refocus on learning how to iteratively improve the way data is strategically applied. This will permit data-based strategy components to keep up with agile, evolving organizational strategies. This approach can also contribute to three primary organizational data goals. Learn how improving the following will help in ways never imagined:
• Your organization’s data
• The way your people use data
• The way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
Data is your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic asset, and it is pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges programmatically includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (Data Strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are also covered, including:
• A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
• An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
• The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
Real-World Data Governance: Data Governance ExpectationsDATAVERSITY
When starting a Data Governance program, significant time, effort and bandwidth is typically spent selling the concept of data governance and telling people in your organization what data governance will do for them. This may not be the best strategy to take. We should focus on making Data Governance THEIR idea not ours.
Shouldn’t the strategy be that we get the business people from our organization to tell US why data governance is necessary and what data governance will do for them? If only we could get them to tell us these things? Maybe we can.
Join Bob Seiner and DATAVERSITY for this informative Real-World Data Governance webinar that will focus on getting THEM to tell US where data governance will add value. Seiner will review techniques for acquiring this information and will share information of where this information will add specific value to your data governance program. Some of those places may surprise you.
Data Management and Data Governance are the same thing! Aren’t they? Most people would say that this line of thinking is absurd – or even worse. There is NO WAY that they are the same thing. Or are they?
Join Bob Seiner and Anthony Algmin for a lively, interactive, and entertaining discussion targeted at providing attendees ways to consider relating these two disciplines. You’ve never attended a session like this.
In this session, Bob and Anthony will discuss:
- The similarities between Data Management and Data Governance
- The differences between the two
- How to use Data Management to sell Data Governance … and the other way around
- Deciding if the two disciplines are the same … or different
Data stewards are the implementation arm of Data Governance. They are also the first line of defense against bad data practices. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, data stewards ensure the organization’s shared data is reliably interconnected. Whether starting or restarting your Data Stewardship program, success comes from:
- Understanding the cadence/role of foundational data practices supporting organizational operations
- Proving value with tangible ROI
- Improving effectiveness/efficiencies using organization-wide insight
- Comprehending how stewards need to be multifunctional and dexterous, especially at first
- Integrating the role of data debt fighting
Data-Ed Online: Approaching Data QualityDATAVERSITY
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is of high quality. Determining how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework for utilizing Data Quality management effectively in support of business strategy. This, in turn, allows for speedy identification of business problems, the delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Organizations must realize what it means to utilize Data Quality engineering in support of business strategy. This webinar will illustrate how organizations with chronic business challenges often can trace the root of the problem to poor Data Quality. Showing how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework in which to develop an effective approach. This, in turn, allows organizations to more quickly identify business problems as well as data problems caused by structural issues versus practice-oriented defects and prevent these from re-occurring.
Learning Objectives:
Help you understand foundational Data Quality concepts based on the DAMA Guide to Data Management Book of Knowledge (DAMA DMBoK), as well as guiding principles, best practices, and steps for improving Data Quality at your organization
Demonstrate how chronic business challenges for organizations are often rooted in poor Data Quality
Share case studies illustrating the hallmarks and benefits of Data Quality success
Business Value Through Reference and Master Data StrategiesDATAVERSITY
Data tends to pile up and can be rendered unusable or obsolete without careful maintenance processes. Reference and Master Data Management (MDM) has been a popular Data Management approach to effectively gain mastery over not just the data but the supporting architecture for processing it. This webinar presents MDM as a strategic approach to improving and formalizing practices around those data items that provide context for many organizational transactions — the master data. Too often, MDM has been implemented technology-first and achieved the same very poor track record (one-third succeeding on time, within budget, and achieving planned functionality). MDM success depends on a coordinated approach, typically involving Data Governance and Data Quality activities.
Learning Objectives:
• Understand foundational reference and MDM concepts based on the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBoK)
• Understand why these are an important component of your Data Architecture
• Gain awareness of reference and MDM frameworks and building blocks
• Know what MDM guiding principles consist of and best practices
• Know how to utilize reference and MDM in support of business strategy
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy — Plans Are Useless, but Planning Is InvaluableDATAVERSITY
Too often, I hear the question, “Can you help me with our Data Strategy?” Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on the least valuable component — the Data Strategy itself. A more useful request is, “Can you help me apply data strategically?” Yes, at early maturity phases, the process of developing strategic thinking about data is more important than the actual product! Trying to write a good (much less perfect) Data Strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive — particularly giving the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Refocus on learning how to iteratively improve the way data is strategically applied. This will permit data-based strategy components to keep up with agile, evolving organizational strategies. This approach can also contribute to three primary organizational data goals. Learn how improving the following will help in ways never imagined:
• Your organization’s data
• The way your people use data
• The way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
Data is your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic asset, and it is pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges programmatically includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (Data Strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are also covered, including:
• A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
• An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
• The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
Real-World Data Governance: Data Governance ExpectationsDATAVERSITY
When starting a Data Governance program, significant time, effort and bandwidth is typically spent selling the concept of data governance and telling people in your organization what data governance will do for them. This may not be the best strategy to take. We should focus on making Data Governance THEIR idea not ours.
Shouldn’t the strategy be that we get the business people from our organization to tell US why data governance is necessary and what data governance will do for them? If only we could get them to tell us these things? Maybe we can.
Join Bob Seiner and DATAVERSITY for this informative Real-World Data Governance webinar that will focus on getting THEM to tell US where data governance will add value. Seiner will review techniques for acquiring this information and will share information of where this information will add specific value to your data governance program. Some of those places may surprise you.
Data-Ed: Show Me the Money: The Business Value of Data and ROIData Blueprint
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, December 11, 2012. It is part of Data Blueprint's ongoing webinar series on data management with Dr. Aiken.
Sign up for future sessions at http://www.datablueprint.com/webinar-schedule.
Abstract:
Failure to successfully monetize data management investments sets up an unfortunate loop of fixing symptoms without addressing the underlying problems. As organizations begin to understand poor data management practices as the root causes of many of their problems, they become more willing to make the required investments in our profession. This presentation uses specific examples to illustrate the costs of poor data management. Join us and learn how you can apply similar tactics at your organization to justify funding and gain management approval.
Real-World Data Governance: Governing Data – Big and Small, Come One Come AllDATAVERSITY
With Big Data being such a hot topic, a frequent question for panels at conferences and on webinars has been “is there any such thing as Big Data Governance?” Bob Seiner has been asked that question many times in many venues. In this webinar Bob tries to answer that question once and for all. Perhaps you will agree with him. As always, there is a strong chance you won’t.
As many organizations consider Big Data solutions they recognize that there are aspects of big data that require specific attention. Some of these management issues are the same as issues with normal size or small data. Some of these management issues differ. What are the differences and what impact do they have on the governance of that data?
Join Bob Seiner and DATAVERSITY for a Real-World Data Governance webinar focused on investigating the similarities and differences between managing and governing big data versus small data.
The first step towards understanding data assets’ impact on your organization is understanding what those assets mean for each other. Metadata — literally, data about data — is a practice area required by good systems development, and yet is also perhaps the most mislabeled and misunderstood Data Management practice. Understanding metadata and its associated technologies as more than just straightforward technological tools can provide powerful insight into the efficiency of organizational practices, and enable you to combine practices into sophisticated techniques, supporting larger and more complex business initiatives. Program learning objectives include:
* Understanding how to leverage metadata practices in support of business strategy
* Discuss foundational metadata concepts
* Guiding principles for and lessons previously learned from metadata and its practical uses applied strategy
* Understanding how to leverage metadata practices in support of business strategy
* Metadata strategies, including:
* Metadata is a gerund so don’t try to treat it as a noun
* Metadata is the language of Data Governance
* Treat glossaries/repositories as capabilities, not technology
DataEd Slides: Expressing Data Improvements as Business OutcomesDATAVERSITY
Join us and learn how you can better align your Data Management projects with business objectives to justify funding and gain management approval. Failure to successfully monetize Data Management investments sets up an unfortunate loop of fixing symptoms without addressing the underlying problems. As organizations begin to understand that data practices are the root causes of many business problems, they become more willing to make the required investments. However, we need to also approach them. The No. 1 reason that data programs fail to deliver is that they do not set or measure specific objectives that are meaningful to management. While there are opportunities to assist at the project level, data improvements are better able to be leveraged at the organization level. An improvable, dedicated data program can only be achieved by repeated application of data practices in service of specific business objectives. Data improvements typically do not maintain an ROI calculation. ROIs expressed in terms that board/executive management cares about deeply ensure data program viability. Improving organizational execution of specific data practice improvements must lead directly to specific improvements in organizational KPIs. While organizations may not be currently practiced in this ability, it is quite easy to learn. This presentation uses a number of specific examples calculating the business impact of data improvements. Program learning objectives include:
• Coming to grips with the state of practice
• Understanding the need for a comparable baseline measure
• Seeing application in a number of contexts
DataEd Slides: Getting Data Quality Right – Success StoriesDATAVERSITY
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is “of sufficient quality.” This program provides a useful framework guiding those approaching Data Quality challenges. Specifically, Data Quality must be approached as an engineering discipline. Data Quality engineering must be approached as a specific ROI-based discipline or it cannot effectively support business strategy. Better understanding of how to “do Data Quality right” allows for speedy identification of business problems, delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Program learning objectives include:
• Vivid demonstrations of how chronic business challenges for organizations are often rooted in broader kinds of Data Quality that suggested treatments can address
• Helping you to understand foundational Data Quality concepts, guiding principles, best practices, and an improved approach to Data Quality at your organization
• The basis of a number of specific case studies illustrating the hallmarks and benefits of Data Quality success
Data Governance Strategies - With Great Power Comes Great AccountabilityDATAVERSITY
Much like project team management and home improvement, data governance sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. In a nutshell, data governance is the process by which an organization delegates responsibility and exercises control over mission-critical data assets. In practice, though, data governance directs how all other data management functions are performed, meaning that much of your data management strategy’s capacity to function at all depends on your effectiveness in governing its implementation. Understanding these aspects of governance is necessary to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds effective data management and stewardship programs, since the goal of governance is to manage the data that supports organizational strategy.
This webinar will:
-Illustrate what data governance functions are required for effective data management, how they fit with other data management disciplines, and why data governance can be tricky for many organizations
-Help you develop a detailed vocabulary and set of narratives to facilitate understanding of your business objectives and imperatives that demand governance
-Provide direction for selling data governance to organizational management as a specifically motivated initiative
DataEd Slides: Data Management vs. Data StrategyDATAVERSITY
Organizations across most industries make some attempt to utilize Data Management and data strategies. While most organizations have both concepts implemented, they must understand their required interoperability to fully achieve their goals.
Learning Objectives
• Gaining a good understanding of both important topics
• Understanding that data only operates at a very intricate, specifically dependent, intent and what this means
• Understand state-of-the-practice
• Coordination is key, requiring necessary but insufficient interdependencies and sequencing
• Practice makes perfect
DataEd Slides: Exorcising the Seven Deadly Data SinsDATAVERSITY
The difficulty of implementing Data Strategy concepts often goes underappreciated, especially the multifaceted nature of the challenges that need to be met. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data.
In this webinar, we will discuss these barriers—the titular “Seven Deadly Data Sins”—and in the process will also:
- Elaborate on the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
- Demonstrate a two-stage Data Strategy implementation process
- Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins,” and recommend solutions and alternative approaches
Data-Ed Slides: Best Practices in Data Stewardship (Technical)DATAVERSITY
In order to find value in your organization's data assets, heroic data stewards are tasked with saving the day- every single day! These heroes adhere to a data governance framework and work to ensure that data is: captured right the first time, validated through automated means, and integrated into business processes. Whether its data profiling or in depth root cause analysis, data stewards can be counted on to ensure the organization's mission critical data is reliable. In this webinar we will approach this framework, and punctuate important facets of a data steward’s role.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the business need for a data governance framework
- Learn why embedded data quality principles are an important part of system/process design
- Identify opportunities to help drive your organization to a data driven culture
Data-Ed Online Webinar: Business Value from MDMDATAVERSITY
This presentation provides you with an understanding of the goals of reference and master data management (MDM), including establishing and implementing authoritative data sources, establishing and implementing more effective means of delivery data to various business processes, as well as increasing the quality of information used in organizational analytical functions (such as BI). You will understand the parallel importance of incorporating data quality engineering into the planning of reference and MDM.
Takeaways:
What is reference and MDM?
Why are reference and MDM important?
Reference and MDM Frameworks
Guiding principles & best practices
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy Best PracticesDATAVERSITY
Your Data Strategy should be concise, actionable, and understandable by business and IT! Data is not just another resource. It is your most powerful, yet poorly managed and therefore underutilized organizational asset. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Overcoming lack of talent, barriers in organizational thinking, and seven specific data sins are organizational prerequisites to be satisfied before (a measurable) nine out of 10 organizations can achieve the three primary goals of an organizational Data Strategy, which are to:
- Improve the way your people use data
- Improve the way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
- Improve your organization’s data
In this manner, your organizational Data Strategy can be used to best focus your data assets in precise support of your organization's strategic objectives. Once past the prerequisites, organizations must develop a disciplined, repeatable means of improving the data literacy, standards, and supply as business objectives in specific areas that become the foci of subsequent Data Governance efforts. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs, as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (Data Strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are covered, including:
- A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
- An overview of prerequisites for effective Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls that can detract from its implementation, such as the “Seven Deadly Data Sins”
- A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints, and the importance of balancing business operation and innovation while doing so
Data Governance and Metadata ManagementDATAVERSITY
Metadata is a tool that improves data understanding, builds end-user confidence, and improves the return on investment in every asset associated with becoming a data-centric organization. Metadata’s use has expanded beyond “data about data” to cover every phase of data analytics, protection, and quality improvement. Data Governance and metadata are connected at the hip in every way possible. As the song goes, “You can’t have one without the other.”
In this RWDG webinar, Bob Seiner will provide a way to renew your energy by focusing on the valuable asset that can make or break your Data Governance program’s success. The truth is metadata is already inherent in your data environment, and it can be leveraged by making it available to all levels of the organization. At issue is finding the most appropriate ways to leverage and share metadata to improve data value and protection.
Throughout this webinar, Bob will share information about:
- Delivering an improved definition of metadata
- Communicating the relationship between successful governance and metadata
- Getting your business community to embrace the need for metadata
- Determining the metadata that will provide the most bang for your bucks
- The importance of Metadata Management to becoming data-centric
Data Systems Integration & Business Value PT. 3: Warehousing Data Blueprint
Certain systems are more data focused than others. Usually their primary focus is on accomplishing integration of disparate data. In these cases, failure is most often attributable to the adoption of a single pillar (silver bullet). The three webinars in the Data Systems Integration and Business Value series are designed to illustrate that good systems development more often depends on at least three DM disciplines (pie wedges) in order to provide a solid foundation.
Integrating data across systems has been a perpetual challenge. Unfortunately, the current technology-focused solutions have not helped IT to improve its dismal project success statistics. Data warehouses, BI implementations, and general analytical efforts achieve the same levels of success as other IT projects – approximately 1/3rd are considered successes when measured against price, schedule, or functionality objectives. The first step is determining the appropriate analysis approach to the data system integration challenge. The second step is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. Turns out that proper analysis at this stage makes actual technology selection far more accurate. Only when these are accomplished can proper matching between problem and capabilities be achieved as the third step and true business value be delivered.
The Five Pillars of Data Governance 2.0 SuccessDATAVERSITY
What’s the state of data governance readiness within your organization?
Do you have an executive sponsor?
Is a standard definition understood across the enterprise?
How does your IT team view it?
How does your organization approach analytics, business intelligence and decision-making?
Have you implemented any technology to provide the necessary capabilities?
These are just a few of the questions you should be asking to determine whether your organization is a data governance leader, laggard or novice. With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) about to take effect, there’s no time to waste in determining whether your’re really ready.
erwin and DATAVERSITY want to help you shore up your data governance initiative so you can use your data to produce the desired results, including but not limited to meeting information security and compliance requirements.
You’ll learn what it takes to build and sustain an enterprise data governance experience – not just an isolated program – for greater visibility, control and value to achieve regulatory compliance and so much more.
Seiner dataversity-rwdg2017-05-operating modelofdatagovernanceroles-20170518f...DATAVERSITY
Roles and responsibilities are the foundation of a successful Data Governance program. An operating model of roles focuses on all levels of the organization including the executive, strategic, tactical and operational responsibilities. A complete model also includes roles that support the program.
In this month’s RWDG webinar, Bob Seiner will present a proven Operating Model of Data Governance Roles & Responsibilities that can be applied to the existing culture of any organization. This webinar may be the most important webinar of the year because of its impact on the rest of your data governance program.
In this webinar Bob will share information about:
The Operating Model as a pyramid diagram
Three different approaches to stewardship
Five distinct levels of responsibilities
Who is expected to participate at each level?
What will be “the ask” of these people?
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy – Plans Are Useless but Planning Is InvaluableDATAVERSITY
Too often we hear the question – can you help me with a data strategy? Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on its least valuable aspect. The more useful request is – can you help me apply data strategically in support of strategy? Yes, at early maturity phases, the process is more important than the product! Trying to write a good (much less perfect) data strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive – particularly giving the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” By refocusing lesson learning on crawl, walk, run approaches to using data strategically, data is able to keep up with agile, evolving strategies. This approach will contribute more to three primary organizational data goals than other efforts. Learn how improving:
• Your organization’s data
• The way your people use data
• The way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
contributes more than predetermined plans. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges pervasively includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs, as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (data strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are covered including:
• A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
• An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
• The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
DataEd Slides: Exorcising the Seven Deadly Data SinsDATAVERSITY
The difficulty of implementing a new data strategy often goes under-appreciated, particularly the multi-faceted procedural challenges that need to be met while doing so. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data. This webinar will discuss these barriers – the titular “Seven Deadly Data Sins” – and in the process will also:
• Elaborate upon the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
• Demonstrate a two-stage Data Strategy implementation process
• Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins,” and recommend solutions
DataEd Slides: Data Management + Data Strategy = InteroperabilityDATAVERSITY
Few organizations operate without having to exchange data. (Many do it professionally and well!) The larger the data exchange burden (DEB), the greater the organizational overhead incurred. This death by 1,000 cuts must be factored into each organization’s calculations. Unfortunately, most organizations do not know if their organization’s DEB is great or small. A somewhat greater number of organizations have organized Data Management practices. Focusing Data Management efforts on increasing interoperability by decreasing the DEB friction is a good area to “practice.”
Learning Objectives:
• Gaining a good understanding of both important topics
• Understanding that data only operates at a very intricate, specifically dependent intent and what this means
• Understand state-of-the-practice
• Coordination is key, requiring necessary but insufficient interdependencies and sequencing
• Practice makes perfect
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is of high quality. Determining how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework for utilizing Data Quality management effectively in support of business strategy. This, in turn, allows for speedy identification of business problems, the delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Organizations must realize what it means to utilize Data Quality engineering in support of business strategy. This webinar will illustrate how organizations with chronic business challenges often can trace the root of the problem to poor Data Quality. Showing how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework in which to develop an effective approach. This, in turn, allows organizations to more quickly identify business problems as well as data problems caused by structural issues versus practice-oriented defects and prevent these from re-occurring.
Data-Ed: Show Me the Money: The Business Value of Data and ROIData Blueprint
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, December 11, 2012. It is part of Data Blueprint's ongoing webinar series on data management with Dr. Aiken.
Sign up for future sessions at http://www.datablueprint.com/webinar-schedule.
Abstract:
Failure to successfully monetize data management investments sets up an unfortunate loop of fixing symptoms without addressing the underlying problems. As organizations begin to understand poor data management practices as the root causes of many of their problems, they become more willing to make the required investments in our profession. This presentation uses specific examples to illustrate the costs of poor data management. Join us and learn how you can apply similar tactics at your organization to justify funding and gain management approval.
Real-World Data Governance: Governing Data – Big and Small, Come One Come AllDATAVERSITY
With Big Data being such a hot topic, a frequent question for panels at conferences and on webinars has been “is there any such thing as Big Data Governance?” Bob Seiner has been asked that question many times in many venues. In this webinar Bob tries to answer that question once and for all. Perhaps you will agree with him. As always, there is a strong chance you won’t.
As many organizations consider Big Data solutions they recognize that there are aspects of big data that require specific attention. Some of these management issues are the same as issues with normal size or small data. Some of these management issues differ. What are the differences and what impact do they have on the governance of that data?
Join Bob Seiner and DATAVERSITY for a Real-World Data Governance webinar focused on investigating the similarities and differences between managing and governing big data versus small data.
The first step towards understanding data assets’ impact on your organization is understanding what those assets mean for each other. Metadata — literally, data about data — is a practice area required by good systems development, and yet is also perhaps the most mislabeled and misunderstood Data Management practice. Understanding metadata and its associated technologies as more than just straightforward technological tools can provide powerful insight into the efficiency of organizational practices, and enable you to combine practices into sophisticated techniques, supporting larger and more complex business initiatives. Program learning objectives include:
* Understanding how to leverage metadata practices in support of business strategy
* Discuss foundational metadata concepts
* Guiding principles for and lessons previously learned from metadata and its practical uses applied strategy
* Understanding how to leverage metadata practices in support of business strategy
* Metadata strategies, including:
* Metadata is a gerund so don’t try to treat it as a noun
* Metadata is the language of Data Governance
* Treat glossaries/repositories as capabilities, not technology
DataEd Slides: Expressing Data Improvements as Business OutcomesDATAVERSITY
Join us and learn how you can better align your Data Management projects with business objectives to justify funding and gain management approval. Failure to successfully monetize Data Management investments sets up an unfortunate loop of fixing symptoms without addressing the underlying problems. As organizations begin to understand that data practices are the root causes of many business problems, they become more willing to make the required investments. However, we need to also approach them. The No. 1 reason that data programs fail to deliver is that they do not set or measure specific objectives that are meaningful to management. While there are opportunities to assist at the project level, data improvements are better able to be leveraged at the organization level. An improvable, dedicated data program can only be achieved by repeated application of data practices in service of specific business objectives. Data improvements typically do not maintain an ROI calculation. ROIs expressed in terms that board/executive management cares about deeply ensure data program viability. Improving organizational execution of specific data practice improvements must lead directly to specific improvements in organizational KPIs. While organizations may not be currently practiced in this ability, it is quite easy to learn. This presentation uses a number of specific examples calculating the business impact of data improvements. Program learning objectives include:
• Coming to grips with the state of practice
• Understanding the need for a comparable baseline measure
• Seeing application in a number of contexts
DataEd Slides: Getting Data Quality Right – Success StoriesDATAVERSITY
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is “of sufficient quality.” This program provides a useful framework guiding those approaching Data Quality challenges. Specifically, Data Quality must be approached as an engineering discipline. Data Quality engineering must be approached as a specific ROI-based discipline or it cannot effectively support business strategy. Better understanding of how to “do Data Quality right” allows for speedy identification of business problems, delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Program learning objectives include:
• Vivid demonstrations of how chronic business challenges for organizations are often rooted in broader kinds of Data Quality that suggested treatments can address
• Helping you to understand foundational Data Quality concepts, guiding principles, best practices, and an improved approach to Data Quality at your organization
• The basis of a number of specific case studies illustrating the hallmarks and benefits of Data Quality success
Data Governance Strategies - With Great Power Comes Great AccountabilityDATAVERSITY
Much like project team management and home improvement, data governance sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. In a nutshell, data governance is the process by which an organization delegates responsibility and exercises control over mission-critical data assets. In practice, though, data governance directs how all other data management functions are performed, meaning that much of your data management strategy’s capacity to function at all depends on your effectiveness in governing its implementation. Understanding these aspects of governance is necessary to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds effective data management and stewardship programs, since the goal of governance is to manage the data that supports organizational strategy.
This webinar will:
-Illustrate what data governance functions are required for effective data management, how they fit with other data management disciplines, and why data governance can be tricky for many organizations
-Help you develop a detailed vocabulary and set of narratives to facilitate understanding of your business objectives and imperatives that demand governance
-Provide direction for selling data governance to organizational management as a specifically motivated initiative
DataEd Slides: Data Management vs. Data StrategyDATAVERSITY
Organizations across most industries make some attempt to utilize Data Management and data strategies. While most organizations have both concepts implemented, they must understand their required interoperability to fully achieve their goals.
Learning Objectives
• Gaining a good understanding of both important topics
• Understanding that data only operates at a very intricate, specifically dependent, intent and what this means
• Understand state-of-the-practice
• Coordination is key, requiring necessary but insufficient interdependencies and sequencing
• Practice makes perfect
DataEd Slides: Exorcising the Seven Deadly Data SinsDATAVERSITY
The difficulty of implementing Data Strategy concepts often goes underappreciated, especially the multifaceted nature of the challenges that need to be met. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data.
In this webinar, we will discuss these barriers—the titular “Seven Deadly Data Sins”—and in the process will also:
- Elaborate on the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
- Demonstrate a two-stage Data Strategy implementation process
- Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins,” and recommend solutions and alternative approaches
Data-Ed Slides: Best Practices in Data Stewardship (Technical)DATAVERSITY
In order to find value in your organization's data assets, heroic data stewards are tasked with saving the day- every single day! These heroes adhere to a data governance framework and work to ensure that data is: captured right the first time, validated through automated means, and integrated into business processes. Whether its data profiling or in depth root cause analysis, data stewards can be counted on to ensure the organization's mission critical data is reliable. In this webinar we will approach this framework, and punctuate important facets of a data steward’s role.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the business need for a data governance framework
- Learn why embedded data quality principles are an important part of system/process design
- Identify opportunities to help drive your organization to a data driven culture
Data-Ed Online Webinar: Business Value from MDMDATAVERSITY
This presentation provides you with an understanding of the goals of reference and master data management (MDM), including establishing and implementing authoritative data sources, establishing and implementing more effective means of delivery data to various business processes, as well as increasing the quality of information used in organizational analytical functions (such as BI). You will understand the parallel importance of incorporating data quality engineering into the planning of reference and MDM.
Takeaways:
What is reference and MDM?
Why are reference and MDM important?
Reference and MDM Frameworks
Guiding principles & best practices
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy Best PracticesDATAVERSITY
Your Data Strategy should be concise, actionable, and understandable by business and IT! Data is not just another resource. It is your most powerful, yet poorly managed and therefore underutilized organizational asset. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Overcoming lack of talent, barriers in organizational thinking, and seven specific data sins are organizational prerequisites to be satisfied before (a measurable) nine out of 10 organizations can achieve the three primary goals of an organizational Data Strategy, which are to:
- Improve the way your people use data
- Improve the way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
- Improve your organization’s data
In this manner, your organizational Data Strategy can be used to best focus your data assets in precise support of your organization's strategic objectives. Once past the prerequisites, organizations must develop a disciplined, repeatable means of improving the data literacy, standards, and supply as business objectives in specific areas that become the foci of subsequent Data Governance efforts. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs, as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (Data Strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are covered, including:
- A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
- An overview of prerequisites for effective Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls that can detract from its implementation, such as the “Seven Deadly Data Sins”
- A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints, and the importance of balancing business operation and innovation while doing so
Data Governance and Metadata ManagementDATAVERSITY
Metadata is a tool that improves data understanding, builds end-user confidence, and improves the return on investment in every asset associated with becoming a data-centric organization. Metadata’s use has expanded beyond “data about data” to cover every phase of data analytics, protection, and quality improvement. Data Governance and metadata are connected at the hip in every way possible. As the song goes, “You can’t have one without the other.”
In this RWDG webinar, Bob Seiner will provide a way to renew your energy by focusing on the valuable asset that can make or break your Data Governance program’s success. The truth is metadata is already inherent in your data environment, and it can be leveraged by making it available to all levels of the organization. At issue is finding the most appropriate ways to leverage and share metadata to improve data value and protection.
Throughout this webinar, Bob will share information about:
- Delivering an improved definition of metadata
- Communicating the relationship between successful governance and metadata
- Getting your business community to embrace the need for metadata
- Determining the metadata that will provide the most bang for your bucks
- The importance of Metadata Management to becoming data-centric
Data Systems Integration & Business Value PT. 3: Warehousing Data Blueprint
Certain systems are more data focused than others. Usually their primary focus is on accomplishing integration of disparate data. In these cases, failure is most often attributable to the adoption of a single pillar (silver bullet). The three webinars in the Data Systems Integration and Business Value series are designed to illustrate that good systems development more often depends on at least three DM disciplines (pie wedges) in order to provide a solid foundation.
Integrating data across systems has been a perpetual challenge. Unfortunately, the current technology-focused solutions have not helped IT to improve its dismal project success statistics. Data warehouses, BI implementations, and general analytical efforts achieve the same levels of success as other IT projects – approximately 1/3rd are considered successes when measured against price, schedule, or functionality objectives. The first step is determining the appropriate analysis approach to the data system integration challenge. The second step is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. Turns out that proper analysis at this stage makes actual technology selection far more accurate. Only when these are accomplished can proper matching between problem and capabilities be achieved as the third step and true business value be delivered.
The Five Pillars of Data Governance 2.0 SuccessDATAVERSITY
What’s the state of data governance readiness within your organization?
Do you have an executive sponsor?
Is a standard definition understood across the enterprise?
How does your IT team view it?
How does your organization approach analytics, business intelligence and decision-making?
Have you implemented any technology to provide the necessary capabilities?
These are just a few of the questions you should be asking to determine whether your organization is a data governance leader, laggard or novice. With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) about to take effect, there’s no time to waste in determining whether your’re really ready.
erwin and DATAVERSITY want to help you shore up your data governance initiative so you can use your data to produce the desired results, including but not limited to meeting information security and compliance requirements.
You’ll learn what it takes to build and sustain an enterprise data governance experience – not just an isolated program – for greater visibility, control and value to achieve regulatory compliance and so much more.
Seiner dataversity-rwdg2017-05-operating modelofdatagovernanceroles-20170518f...DATAVERSITY
Roles and responsibilities are the foundation of a successful Data Governance program. An operating model of roles focuses on all levels of the organization including the executive, strategic, tactical and operational responsibilities. A complete model also includes roles that support the program.
In this month’s RWDG webinar, Bob Seiner will present a proven Operating Model of Data Governance Roles & Responsibilities that can be applied to the existing culture of any organization. This webinar may be the most important webinar of the year because of its impact on the rest of your data governance program.
In this webinar Bob will share information about:
The Operating Model as a pyramid diagram
Three different approaches to stewardship
Five distinct levels of responsibilities
Who is expected to participate at each level?
What will be “the ask” of these people?
DataEd Slides: Data Strategy – Plans Are Useless but Planning Is InvaluableDATAVERSITY
Too often we hear the question – can you help me with a data strategy? Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on its least valuable aspect. The more useful request is – can you help me apply data strategically in support of strategy? Yes, at early maturity phases, the process is more important than the product! Trying to write a good (much less perfect) data strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive – particularly giving the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” By refocusing lesson learning on crawl, walk, run approaches to using data strategically, data is able to keep up with agile, evolving strategies. This approach will contribute more to three primary organizational data goals than other efforts. Learn how improving:
• Your organization’s data
• The way your people use data
• The way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
contributes more than predetermined plans. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges pervasively includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs, as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (data strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are covered including:
• A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
• An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
• The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
DataEd Slides: Exorcising the Seven Deadly Data SinsDATAVERSITY
The difficulty of implementing a new data strategy often goes under-appreciated, particularly the multi-faceted procedural challenges that need to be met while doing so. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data. This webinar will discuss these barriers – the titular “Seven Deadly Data Sins” – and in the process will also:
• Elaborate upon the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
• Demonstrate a two-stage Data Strategy implementation process
• Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins,” and recommend solutions
DataEd Slides: Data Management + Data Strategy = InteroperabilityDATAVERSITY
Few organizations operate without having to exchange data. (Many do it professionally and well!) The larger the data exchange burden (DEB), the greater the organizational overhead incurred. This death by 1,000 cuts must be factored into each organization’s calculations. Unfortunately, most organizations do not know if their organization’s DEB is great or small. A somewhat greater number of organizations have organized Data Management practices. Focusing Data Management efforts on increasing interoperability by decreasing the DEB friction is a good area to “practice.”
Learning Objectives:
• Gaining a good understanding of both important topics
• Understanding that data only operates at a very intricate, specifically dependent intent and what this means
• Understand state-of-the-practice
• Coordination is key, requiring necessary but insufficient interdependencies and sequencing
• Practice makes perfect
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is of high quality. Determining how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework for utilizing Data Quality management effectively in support of business strategy. This, in turn, allows for speedy identification of business problems, the delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Organizations must realize what it means to utilize Data Quality engineering in support of business strategy. This webinar will illustrate how organizations with chronic business challenges often can trace the root of the problem to poor Data Quality. Showing how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework in which to develop an effective approach. This, in turn, allows organizations to more quickly identify business problems as well as data problems caused by structural issues versus practice-oriented defects and prevent these from re-occurring.
DataEd Slides: Data Management Best PracticesDATAVERSITY
It is clear that Data Management best practices exist, and so does a useful process for improving existing Data Management practices. The question arises: Since we understand the goal, how does one design a process for Data Management goal achievement? This program describes what must be done at the programmatic level to achieve better data use and a way to implement this as part of your data program. The approach combines DMBoK content and CMMI/DMM processes — permitting organizations the opportunity to benefit from the best of both. It also permits organizations to understand:
• Their current Data Management practices
• Strengths that should be leveraged
• Remediation opportunities
Necessary Prerequisites to Data SuccessDATAVERSITY
Far more organizations attempt to do more with data than succeed. Understanding common prerequisites to unrestricted data practices will help you determine the extent of these challenges in your organization and increase your chances of success. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that, there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data. This webinar will discuss these barriers — aka the “Seven Deadly Data Sins” — and in the process will also
- Elaborate upon the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
- Demonstrate a two-stage Data Strategy implementation process
- Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins” and recommend solutions
DataEd Slides: Approaching Data Governance StrategicallyDATAVERSITY
At its core, Data Governance (DG) is: managing data with guidance. This immediately provokes the question: Would you tolerate your data managed without guidance? (In all likelihood, your organization has been managing data without adequate guidance and this accounts for its current, less-than-optimal state.) This program provides a practical guide to implementing DG or recharging your existing program. It provides your organization with an understanding of what Data Governance functions are required and how they fit with other Data Management disciplines. Understanding these aspects is a necessary prerequisite to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds initial discussions and implement effective Data Governance/Stewardship programs that manage data in support of organizational strategy. Program learning objectives include:
• Understanding why Data Governance can be tricky for organizations due to data’s confounding characteristics
• Strategy No. 1: Keeping DG practically focused
• Strategy No. 2: DG must exist at the same level as HR
• Strategy No. 3: Gradually add ingredients
• Data Governance in action: storytelling
Key Elements of a Successful Data Governance ProgramDATAVERSITY
At its core, Data Governance (DG) is all about managing data with guidance. This immediately provokes the question: Would you tolerate any of your assets to be managed without guidance? (In all likelihood, your organization has been managing data without adequate guidance and this accounts for its current, less-than-optimal state.) This program provides a practical guide to implementing DG or recharging your existing program. It provides an understanding of what Data Governance functions are required and how they fit with other Data Management disciplines. Understanding these aspects is a prerequisite to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds initial discussions and implement effective Data Governance/Stewardship programs that manage data in support of organizational strategy. Delegates will understand why Data Governance can be tricky for organizations due to data’s confounding characteristics. This webinar will focus on four key DG elements:
- Keeping DG practically focused
- DG must exist at the same level as HR
- Gradually add ingredients (practicing and getting better)
- Data Governance in action: storytelling
DataEd Slides: Getting (Re)Started with Data StewardshipDATAVERSITY
In order to find value in your organization’s data assets, heroic data stewards are tasked with saving the day – every single day! Adhering to the organizational Data Governance (DG) framework, they work to ensure that data is captured right the first time, validated through appropriately automated means, and integrated into business processing. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, data stewards ensure the organization’s mission-critical data is reliably coordinated. This program will approach this framework and punctuate important facets of a data steward’s role. Learning objectives include:
• Understanding the motivation for full-time data stewards in your organization
• Comprehending how stewards need to be multifunctional and dexterous, especially at first
• Exploring how stewards successfully target SDLC from cadence, approach, simplicity requirements, foundational prerequisite, and perspectives
Too often I hear the question “Can you help me with our Data Strategy?” Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on the least valuable component – the Data Strategy itself. A more useful request is this: “Can you help me apply data strategically?”Yes, at early maturity phases the process of developing strategic thinking about data is more important than the actual product! Trying to write a good (must less perfect) Data Strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive –particularly given the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Refocus on learning how to iteratively improve the way data is strategically applied. This will permit data-based strategy components to keep up with agile, evolving organizational strategies. This approach can also contribute to three primary organizational data goals.
In this webinar, you will learn how improving your organization’s data, the way your people use data, and the way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy will help in ways never imagined. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges programmatically includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs, as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (Data Strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are also covered, including:
- A cohesive argument for why Data Strategy is necessary for effective Data Governance
- An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of Data Strategy, as well as common pitfalls
- A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
- The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
DataEd Slides: Getting Started with Data StewardshipDATAVERSITY
In order to find value in your organization’s data assets, heroic Data Stewards are tasked with saving the day—every single day! These heroes adhere to a Data Governance framework, and work to ensure that data is captured right the first time, validated through automated means, and integrated into business processes. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, Data Stewards can be counted on to ensure the organization’s mission-critical data is reliable. In this webinar, we will approach this framework and punctuate important facets of a Data Steward’s role.
Good data is like good water: best served fresh, and ideally well-filtered. Data Management strategies can produce tremendous procedural improvements and increased profit margins across the board, but only if the data being managed is of high quality. Determining how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework for utilizing Data Quality management effectively in support of business strategy. This, in turn, allows for speedy identification of business problems, delineation between structural and practice-oriented defects in Data Management, and proactive prevention of future issues. Organizations must realize what it means to utilize Data Quality engineering in support of business strategy. This webinar will illustrate how organizations with chronic business challenges can often trace the root of the problem to poor Data Quality. Showing how Data Quality should be engineered provides a useful framework in which to develop an effective approach. This in turn allows organizations to more quickly identify business problems as well as data problems caused by structural issues versus practice-oriented defects and prevent these from reoccurring.
Learning objectives:
-Help you understand foundational Data Quality concepts for improving Data Quality at your organization
-Demonstrate how chronic business challenges for organizations are often rooted in poor Data Quality
-Share case studies illustrating the hallmarks and benefits of Data Quality success
In order to find value in your organization’s data assets, heroic Data Stewards are tasked with saving the day—every single day! These heroes adhere to a Data Governance framework and work to ensure that data is captured right the first time, validated through automated means, and integrated into business processes. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, Data Stewards can be counted on to ensure the organization’s mission-critical data is reliable. In this webinar, we will approach this framework and punctuate important facets of a Data Steward’s role.
- Understand the business need for a Data Governance framework
- Learn why embedded Data Quality principles are an important part of system/process design
- Identify opportunities to help drive your organization to a data-driven culture
DataEd Slides: Growing Practical Data Governance ProgramsDATAVERSITY
At its core, Data Governance (DG) is managing data with guidance. This immediately provokes the question: Would you tolerate any of your assets to be managed without guidance? (In all likelihood, your organization has been managing data without adequate guidance, and this accounts for its current, less-than-optimal state.) This program provides a practical guide to implementing DG or recharging your existing program. It provides an understanding of what Data Governance functions are required and how they fit with other Data Management disciplines. Understanding these aspects is a necessary prerequisite to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds initial discussions and implement effective Data Governance/stewardship programs that manage data in support of the organizational strategy. Program learning objectives include:
• Understanding why Data Governance can be tricky for organizations due to data’s confounding characteristics
• Strategy #1: Keeping DG practically focused
• Strategy #2: DG must exist at the same level as HR
• Strategy #3: Gradually add ingredients
• Data Governance in action: storytelling
Where Data Architecture and Data Governance CollideDATAVERSITY
While collide is perhaps a strong term to use to describe the key area where Data Architecture and Data Governance interact, it does provide motivation to perhaps calm the traffic and avoid further collisions. In order to harmoniously interact, architecture and governance must literally be working from the same diagram (singing from the same sheet of music). The worst time to try to accomplish this is on a short-term decision. Better still to educate each group to the function of the other and major issues upcoming. A shared Data Literacy exercise can provide a good starting point.
Learning objectives:
- Gaining a good understanding of both important topics, each’s relationship to the other, and what is required for each to be successful
- Not to have the first conversation be the important one
- Coordination is key requiring necessary interdependencies and sequencing
- Integration challenges can be valued, assisting shared priority development
Data-Ed Webinar: Monetizing Data Management - Show Me the MoneyDATAVERSITY
Practicality and profitability may share a page in the dictionary, but incorporating both into a data management plan can prove challenging. Many data professionals struggle to demonstrate tangible returns on data management investments, especially in industries such as healthcare where financial results aren’t necessarily an organization’s primary concern. The key to “monetizing” data management, therefore, is thinking about data in a different way: as an information solution rather than simply an IT one, using data to drive decision-making towards increased profits and potentially alternative returns on investment or value outcomes as well. Taking a broader view of data assets facilitates easier sharing of information across organizational silos, and allows for a wider understanding of the investment’s requirements and benefits.
In this webinar—designed to appeal to both business and IT attendees—your presenter will:
Describe multiple types of value produced through data-centric development and management practices
Expand on and beyond metrics meant for increasing revenues or decreasing costs—i.e. investments that directly impact an organization’s financial position
Detail how alternative statistics and valuations can be used to justify data management and quality initiatives
Whether you call it data munging, data cleansing, or data wrangling, everyone agrees that data preparation activities account for 80% of analysts’ time, leaving only 20% for analysis. Shifting this work to more specialized talent represents a major source of data analysis productivity improvements. This program “walks” through the major preparation categories including collection, evaluation, evolution, access design, and storage requirements. Understanding each in context also provides opportunities to develop complementary Data Governance/ethics frameworks. A generalized approach is presented.
Learning objectives:
- Appreciate the savings that can accrue from transforming data preparation from one-off to an improvable process
- Recognize what data preparation knowledge/skills your organization has and/or needs
- Better know the transformations that data can survive as it is prepared to be analyzed
Data-Ed Webinar: Data Governance StrategiesDATAVERSITY
Much like project team management and home improvement, Data Governance sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. In a nutshell, Data Governance is the process by which an organization delegates responsibility and exercises control over mission-critical data assets. In practice, though, Data Governance directs how all other Data Management functions are performed, meaning that much of your Data Management strategy’s capacity to function at all depends on your effectiveness in governing its implementation. Understanding these aspects of governance is necessary to eliminate the ambiguity that often surrounds effective Data Management and stewardship programs, since the goal of governance is to manage the data that supports organizational strategy.
This webinar will:
Illustrate what Data Governance functions are required for effective Data Management, how they fit with other Data Management disciplines, and why Data Governance can be tricky for many organizations
Help you develop a detailed vocabulary and set of narratives to facilitate understanding of your business objectives and imperatives that demand governance
Provide direction for selling Data Governance to organizational management as a specifically motivated initiative
Discuss foundational Data Governance concepts based on “The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge” (DAMA DMBOK)
DataEd Webinar: Implementing Successful Data Strategies - Developing Organiza...DATAVERSITY
Big Data projects have been about as successful as other IT projects – about 29% successful according to the 2015 Standish Group Chaos Report. Second, Data Scientists are generally assessed to be about 20% productive. The reason for both of these dismal statistics is simple—organizations are terrible about understanding how to use data as a strategic organizational resource. In fact, considering the data is our sole, non-depletable, non-degrading, durable strategic asset, it is really mind boggling how poorly it is managed. Having an actionable data strategy is the first, most critical step in exerting positive control over data and leveraging it in support of your organization's business strategy.
This talk will simply describe:
What a data strategy is and its key component pieces
How to align your data strategy with your organization’s strategic imperatives while recognizing the constraints of current state capabilities; and
How to develop actionable roadmaps that will add value to the organization’s ability to leverage and monetize its data most effectively.
Once understood, your organization will be better positioned to support its mission and take advantage of new and existing data sources while complying with relevant laws, regulations, and policies.
Data-Ed Webinar: The Seven Deadly Data Sins - Emerging from Management PurgatoryDATAVERSITY
While wrath and envy are best left for human resources to address, overcoming the numerous obstacles that often inhibit successful data management must be a full organizational effort. The difficulty of implementing a new data strategy often goes underappreciated, particularly the multi-faceted nature of the challenges that need to be met. Deficiencies in organizational readiness and core competence represent clearly visible problems faced by data managers, but beyond that there are several cultural and structural barriers common to virtually all organizations that must be eliminated in order to facilitate effective management of data.
In this webinar, we will discuss these barriers—the titular “Seven Deadly Data Sins”, and in the process will also:
Elaborate upon the three critical factors that lead to strategy failure
Demonstrate a two-stage data strategy implementation process
Explore the sources and rationales behind the “Seven Deadly Data Sins”, and recommend solutions and alternative approaches
Because every organization produces and propagates data as part of their day-to-day operations, data trends are becoming more and more important in the mainstream business world’s consciousness. For many organizations in various industries, though, comprehension of this development begins and ends with buzzwords: “big data,” “NoSQL,” “data scientist,” and so on. Few realize that any and all solutions to their business problems, regardless of platform or relevant technology, rely to a critical extent on the data model supporting them. As such, Data Modeling is not an optional task for an organization’s data effort, but rather a vital activity that facilitates the solutions driving your business. Since quality engineering/architecture work products do not happen accidentally, the more your organization depends on automation, the more important the data models driving the engineering and architecture activities of your organization become. This webinar illustrates Data Modeling as a key activity upon which so much technology depends.
Similar to Getting (Re)Started with Data Stewardship (20)
Architecture, Products, and Total Cost of Ownership of the Leading Machine Le...DATAVERSITY
Organizations today need a broad set of enterprise data cloud services with key data functionality to modernize applications and utilize machine learning. They need a comprehensive platform designed to address multi-faceted needs by offering multi-function data management and analytics to solve the enterprise’s most pressing data and analytic challenges in a streamlined fashion.
In this research-based session, I’ll discuss what the components are in multiple modern enterprise analytics stacks (i.e., dedicated compute, storage, data integration, streaming, etc.) and focus on total cost of ownership.
A complete machine learning infrastructure cost for the first modern use case at a midsize to large enterprise will be anywhere from $3 million to $22 million. Get this data point as you take the next steps on your journey into the highest spend and return item for most companies in the next several years.
Data at the Speed of Business with Data Mastering and GovernanceDATAVERSITY
Do you ever wonder how data-driven organizations fuel analytics, improve customer experience, and accelerate business productivity? They are successful by governing and mastering data effectively so they can get trusted data to those who need it faster. Efficient data discovery, mastering and democratization is critical for swiftly linking accurate data with business consumers. When business teams can quickly and easily locate, interpret, trust, and apply data assets to support sound business judgment, it takes less time to see value.
Join data mastering and data governance experts from Informatica—plus a real-world organization empowering trusted data for analytics—for a lively panel discussion. You’ll hear more about how a single cloud-native approach can help global businesses in any economy create more value—faster, more reliably, and with more confidence—by making data management and governance easier to implement.
What is data literacy? Which organizations, and which workers in those organizations, need to be data-literate? There are seemingly hundreds of definitions of data literacy, along with almost as many opinions about how to achieve it.
In a broader perspective, companies must consider whether data literacy is an isolated goal or one component of a broader learning strategy to address skill deficits. How does data literacy compare to other types of skills or “literacy” such as business acumen?
This session will position data literacy in the context of other worker skills as a framework for understanding how and where it fits and how to advocate for its importance.
Building a Data Strategy – Practical Steps for Aligning with Business GoalsDATAVERSITY
Developing a Data Strategy for your organization can seem like a daunting task – but it’s worth the effort. Getting your Data Strategy right can provide significant value, as data drives many of the key initiatives in today’s marketplace – from digital transformation, to marketing, to customer centricity, to population health, and more. This webinar will help demystify Data Strategy and its relationship to Data Architecture and will provide concrete, practical ways to get started.
Uncover how your business can save money and find new revenue streams.
Driving profitability is a top priority for companies globally, especially in uncertain economic times. It's imperative that companies reimagine growth strategies and improve process efficiencies to help cut costs and drive revenue – but how?
By leveraging data-driven strategies layered with artificial intelligence, companies can achieve untapped potential and help their businesses save money and drive profitability.
In this webinar, you'll learn:
- How your company can leverage data and AI to reduce spending and costs
- Ways you can monetize data and AI and uncover new growth strategies
- How different companies have implemented these strategies to achieve cost optimization benefits
Data Catalogs Are the Answer – What is the Question?DATAVERSITY
Organizations with governed metadata made available through their data catalog can answer questions their people have about the organization’s data. These organizations get more value from their data, protect their data better, gain improved ROI from data-centric projects and programs, and have more confidence in their most strategic data.
Join Bob Seiner for this lively webinar where he will talk about the value of a data catalog and how to build the use of the catalog into your stewards’ daily routines. Bob will share how the tool must be positioned for success and viewed as a must-have resource that is a steppingstone and catalyst to governed data across the organization.
Data Catalogs Are the Answer – What Is the Question?DATAVERSITY
Organizations with governed metadata made available through their data catalog can answer questions their people have about the organization’s data. These organizations get more value from their data, protect their data better, gain improved ROI from data-centric projects and programs, and have more confidence in their most strategic data.
Join Bob Seiner for this lively webinar where he will talk about the value of a data catalog and how to build the use of the catalog into your stewards’ daily routines. Bob will share how the tool must be positioned for success and viewed as a must-have resource that is a steppingstone and catalyst to governed data across the organization.
In this webinar, Bob will focus on:
-Selecting the appropriate metadata to govern
-The business and technical value of a data catalog
-Building the catalog into people’s routines
-Positioning the data catalog for success
-Questions the data catalog can answer
Because every organization produces and propagates data as part of their day-to-day operations, data trends are becoming more and more important in the mainstream business world’s consciousness. For many organizations in various industries, though, comprehension of this development begins and ends with buzzwords: “Big Data,” “NoSQL,” “Data Scientist,” and so on. Few realize that all solutions to their business problems, regardless of platform or relevant technology, rely to a critical extent on the data model supporting them. As such, data modeling is not an optional task for an organization’s data effort, but rather a vital activity that facilitates the solutions driving your business. Since quality engineering/architecture work products do not happen accidentally, the more your organization depends on automation, the more important the data models driving the engineering and architecture activities of your organization. This webinar illustrates data modeling as a key activity upon which so much technology and business investment depends.
Specific learning objectives include:
- Understanding what types of challenges require data modeling to be part of the solution
- How automation requires standardization on derivable via data modeling techniques
- Why only a working partnership between data and the business can produce useful outcomes
Analytics play a critical role in supporting strategic business initiatives. Despite the obvious value to analytic professionals of providing the analytics for these initiatives, many executives question the economic return of analytics as well as data lakes, machine learning, master data management, and the like.
Technology professionals need to calculate and present business value in terms business executives can understand. Unfortunately, most IT professionals lack the knowledge required to develop comprehensive cost-benefit analyses and return on investment (ROI) measurements.
This session provides a framework to help technology professionals research, measure, and present the economic value of a proposed or existing analytics initiative, no matter the form that the business benefit arises. The session will provide practical advice about how to calculate ROI and the formulas, and how to collect the necessary information.
How a Semantic Layer Makes Data Mesh Work at ScaleDATAVERSITY
Data Mesh is a trending approach to building a decentralized data architecture by leveraging a domain-oriented, self-service design. However, the pure definition of Data Mesh lacks a center of excellence or central data team and doesn’t address the need for a common approach for sharing data products across teams. The semantic layer is emerging as a key component to supporting a Hub and Spoke style of organizing data teams by introducing data model sharing, collaboration, and distributed ownership controls.
This session will explain how data teams can define common models and definitions with a semantic layer to decentralize analytics product creation using a Hub and Spoke architecture.
Attend this session to learn about:
- The role of a Data Mesh in the modern cloud architecture.
- How a semantic layer can serve as the binding agent to support decentralization.
- How to drive self service with consistency and control.
Enterprise data literacy. A worthy objective? Certainly! A realistic goal? That remains to be seen. As companies consider investing in data literacy education, questions arise about its value and purpose. While the destination – having a data-fluent workforce – is attractive, we wonder how (and if) we can get there.
Kicking off this webinar series, we begin with a panel discussion to explore the landscape of literacy, including expert positions and results from focus groups:
- why it matters,
- what it means,
- what gets in the way,
- who needs it (and how much they need),
- what companies believe it will accomplish.
In this engaging discussion about literacy, we will set the stage for future webinars to answer specific questions and feature successful literacy efforts.
The Data Trifecta – Privacy, Security & Governance Race from Reactivity to Re...DATAVERSITY
Change is hard, especially in response to negative stimuli or what is perceived as negative stimuli. So organizations need to reframe how they think about data privacy, security and governance, treating them as value centers to 1) ensure enterprise data can flow where it needs to, 2) prevent – not just react – to internal and external threats, and 3) comply with data privacy and security regulations.
Working together, these roles can accelerate faster access to approved, relevant and higher quality data – and that means more successful use cases, faster speed to insights, and better business outcomes. However, both new information and tools are required to make the shift from defense to offense, reducing data drama while increasing its value.
Join us for this panel discussion with experts in these fields as they discuss:
- Recent research about where data privacy, security and governance stand
- The most valuable enterprise data use cases
- The common obstacles to data value creation
- New approaches to data privacy, security and governance
- Their advice on how to shift from a reactive to resilient mindset/culture/organization
You’ll be educated, entertained and inspired by this panel and their expertise in using the data trifecta to innovate more often, operate more efficiently, and differentiate more strategically.
Emerging Trends in Data Architecture – What’s the Next Big Thing?DATAVERSITY
With technological innovation and change occurring at an ever-increasing rate, it’s hard to keep track of what’s hype and what can provide practical value for your organization. Join this webinar to see the results of a recent DATAVERSITY survey on emerging trends in Data Architecture, along with practical commentary and advice from industry expert Donna Burbank.
Data Governance Trends - A Look Backwards and ForwardsDATAVERSITY
As DATAVERSITY’s RWDG series hurdles into our 12th year, this webinar takes a quick look behind us, evaluates the present, and predicts the future of Data Governance. Based on webinar numbers, hot Data Governance topics have evolved over the years from policies and best practices, roles and tools, data catalogs and frameworks, to supporting data mesh and fabric, artificial intelligence, virtualization, literacy, and metadata governance.
Join Bob Seiner as he reflects on the past and what has and has not worked, while sharing examples of enterprise successes and struggles. In this webinar, Bob will challenge the audience to stay a step ahead by learning from the past and blazing a new trail into the future of Data Governance.
In this webinar, Bob will focus on:
- Data Governance’s past, present, and future
- How trials and tribulations evolve to success
- Leveraging lessons learned to improve productivity
- The great Data Governance tool explosion
- The future of Data Governance
Data Governance Trends and Best Practices To Implement TodayDATAVERSITY
Would you share your bank account information on social media? How about shouting your social security number on the New York City subway? We didn’t think so either – that’s why data governance is consistently top of mind.
In this webinar, we’ll discuss the common Cloud data governance best practices – and how to apply them today. Join us to uncover Google Cloud’s investment in data governance and learn practical and doable methods around key management and confidential computing. Hear real customer experiences and leave with insights that you can share with your team. Let’s get solving.
Topics that you will hear addressed in this webinar:
- Understanding the basics of Cloud Incident Response (IR) and anticipated data governance trends
- Best practices for key management and apply data governance to your day-to-day
- The next wave of Confidential Computing and how to get started, including a demo
It is a fascinating, explosive time for enterprise analytics.
It is from the position of analytics leadership that the enterprise mission will be executed and company leadership will emerge. The data professional is absolutely sitting on the performance of the company in this information economy and has an obligation to demonstrate the possibilities and originate the architecture, data, and projects that will deliver analytics. After all, no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the business of analytics.
The coming years will be full of big changes in enterprise analytics and data architecture. William will kick off the fifth year of the Advanced Analytics series with a discussion of the trends winning organizations should build into their plans, expectations, vision, and awareness now.
Too often I hear the question “Can you help me with our data strategy?” Unfortunately, for most, this is the wrong request because it focuses on the least valuable component: the data strategy itself. A more useful request is: “Can you help me apply data strategically?” Yes, at early maturity phases the process of developing strategic thinking about data is more important than the actual product! Trying to write a good (must less perfect) data strategy on the first attempt is generally not productive –particularly given the widespread acceptance of Mike Tyson’s truism: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” This program refocuses efforts on learning how to iteratively improve the way data is strategically applied. This will permit data-based strategy components to keep up with agile, evolving organizational strategies. It also contributes to three primary organizational data goals. Learn how to improve the following:
- Your organization’s data
- The way your people use data
- The way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy
This will help in ways never imagined. Data are your sole non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Addressing existing challenges programmatically includes overcoming necessary but insufficient prerequisites and developing a disciplined, repeatable means of improving business objectives. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (data strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts are also covered, including:
- A cohesive argument for why data strategy is necessary for effective data governance
- An overview of prerequisites for effective strategic use of data strategy, as well as common pitfalls
- A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
- The importance of balancing business operation and innovation
Who Should Own Data Governance – IT or Business?DATAVERSITY
The question is asked all the time: “What part of the organization should own your Data Governance program?” The typical answers are “the business” and “IT (information technology).” Another answer to that question is “Yes.” The program must be owned and reside somewhere in the organization. You may ask yourself if there is a correct answer to the question.
Join this new RWDG webinar with Bob Seiner where Bob will answer the question that is the title of this webinar. Determining ownership of Data Governance is a vital first step. Figuring out the appropriate part of the organization to manage the program is an important second step. This webinar will help you address these questions and more.
In this session Bob will share:
- What is meant by “the business” when it comes to owning Data Governance
- Why some people say that Data Governance in IT is destined to fail
- Examples of IT positioned Data Governance success
- Considerations for answering the question in your organization
- The final answer to the question of who should own Data Governance
It is clear that Data Management best practices exist and so does a useful process for improving existing Data Management practices. The question arises: Since we understand the goal, how does one design a process for Data Management goal achievement? This program describes what must be done at the programmatic level to achieve better data use and a way to implement this as part of your data program. The approach combines DMBoK content and CMMI/DMM processes – permitting organizations with the opportunity to benefit from the best of both. It also permits organizations to understand:
- Their current Data Management practices
- Strengths that should be leveraged
- Remediation opportunities
MLOps – Applying DevOps to Competitive AdvantageDATAVERSITY
MLOps is a practice for collaboration between Data Science and operations to manage the production machine learning (ML) lifecycles. As an amalgamation of “machine learning” and “operations,” MLOps applies DevOps principles to ML delivery, enabling the delivery of ML-based innovation at scale to result in:
Faster time to market of ML-based solutions
More rapid rate of experimentation, driving innovation
Assurance of quality, trustworthiness, and ethical AI
MLOps is essential for scaling ML. Without it, enterprises risk struggling with costly overhead and stalled progress. Several vendors have emerged with offerings to support MLOps: the major offerings are Microsoft Azure ML and Google Vertex AI. We looked at these offerings from the perspective of enterprise features and time-to-value.
06-04-2024 - NYC Tech Week - Discussion on Vector Databases, Unstructured Data and AI
Discussion on Vector Databases, Unstructured Data and AI
https://www.meetup.com/unstructured-data-meetup-new-york/
This meetup is for people working in unstructured data. Speakers will come present about related topics such as vector databases, LLMs, and managing data at scale. The intended audience of this group includes roles like machine learning engineers, data scientists, data engineers, software engineers, and PMs.This meetup was formerly Milvus Meetup, and is sponsored by Zilliz maintainers of Milvus.
Chatty Kathy - UNC Bootcamp Final Project Presentation - Final Version - 5.23...John Andrews
SlideShare Description for "Chatty Kathy - UNC Bootcamp Final Project Presentation"
Title: Chatty Kathy: Enhancing Physical Activity Among Older Adults
Description:
Discover how Chatty Kathy, an innovative project developed at the UNC Bootcamp, aims to tackle the challenge of low physical activity among older adults. Our AI-driven solution uses peer interaction to boost and sustain exercise levels, significantly improving health outcomes. This presentation covers our problem statement, the rationale behind Chatty Kathy, synthetic data and persona creation, model performance metrics, a visual demonstration of the project, and potential future developments. Join us for an insightful Q&A session to explore the potential of this groundbreaking project.
Project Team: Jay Requarth, Jana Avery, John Andrews, Dr. Dick Davis II, Nee Buntoum, Nam Yeongjin & Mat Nicholas
Adjusting OpenMP PageRank : SHORT REPORT / NOTESSubhajit Sahu
For massive graphs that fit in RAM, but not in GPU memory, it is possible to take
advantage of a shared memory system with multiple CPUs, each with multiple cores, to
accelerate pagerank computation. If the NUMA architecture of the system is properly taken
into account with good vertex partitioning, the speedup can be significant. To take steps in
this direction, experiments are conducted to implement pagerank in OpenMP using two
different approaches, uniform and hybrid. The uniform approach runs all primitives required
for pagerank in OpenMP mode (with multiple threads). On the other hand, the hybrid
approach runs certain primitives in sequential mode (i.e., sumAt, multiply).
Analysis insight about a Flyball dog competition team's performanceroli9797
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06-04-2024 - NYC Tech Week - Discussion on Vector Databases, Unstructured Data and AI
Round table discussion of vector databases, unstructured data, ai, big data, real-time, robots and Milvus.
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Home About Getting Involved LO Events
In Tools Tags Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Dictionary, Data Engineering June 17, 2019 Michael Kaminsky & Alex J
You Probably Don’t Need a Data Dictionary
While efforts to build a data dictionary are often undertaken out of a zeal for documentation
applaud, in practice data dictionaries and data catalogs end up being a large maintenance
value, and tend to very quickly become out of date.
Instead of investing in building out traditional data dictionaries, we recommend a few differe
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achieving the same goals in ways that are less burdensome to maintain and better serve th
well.
What is a data dictionary?
In this post we’ll use the term “data dictionary” to describe a range of products that include
and “data catalogs”. In general, we’re referring to documents that contain metadata about
warehouse – most commonly, they have one section per table with one row per column inc
column-name, the column-type, any relevant foreign-keys, and a brief description of the co
will be additional metadata about the source of the table (a source system or potentially a p
A screenshot from an unhelpful data dictionary.
Why are data dictionaries created?
Listen. There’s no activity the two of us like better for enjoying a beautiful spring Saturday t
desk, cracking open a cold Kombucha, and writing some damn documentation. While we d
desire to document-all-the-things, we also believe that it is important to find the right docum
the goals that you want to achieve. People tend to embark on the data dictionary journey w
vague goals in mind. They want to 1) enable more data exploration, 2) codify a single sourc
definitions, and 3) document the provenance of particular pieces of business logic.
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These are all great goals! However, we do not believe that data dictionaries are the best too
these objectives. We will talk a bit about why we do not believe that data dictionaries, as tra
work very well before diving into alternative ways to achieve those goals.
What goes wrong with data dictionaries?
With your traditional data dictionary, you start small and simple. Maybe just documenting th
tables, or the definitions and business logic behind your top three KPIs.
But new use cases are always coming up, new ways of looking at data and measuring succ
to standardize) – and so the list grows.
If your KPIs aren’t just pulling from a single table or a single system, now you need to start
different sources join together in a wild mess of foreign key relationships. Maybe you even c
pictures speak a thousand words after all.
And everything is great…until you run into the issue of different audiences:
Non-technical business users: Just want the data, or at most, a high-level summary
they’re important.
Business analysts: Want the data, but also the business logic behind it, and probably
populate the source and/or the relevant context.
Data scientists / Engineers: Just want the column-level metadata, relationships, and
raw data correctly – “I can write my own SQL/Python, thanks.”
Which means that realistically, to solve everyone’s use case, you’ll need to write three versi
one, very large version) for any given piece of data. Not fun.
But even if you’re willing to go down that path, eventually something will change. Maybe yo
Conversion just shifted a little bit (as we all know, business logic can be extremely slippery)
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have to update not only your data model and dashboards + reports, but also 3 documents
The maintenance burden very quickly grows into a scalability issue, and a serious bloc
iteration speed of the entire data team. Not only does maintaining documentation slow you
documentation starts to slip (as it inevitably will) the consumers of the data dictionary will b
you will be investing time in maintaining this document that people do not even trust (and th
As a result, the heroes who start down the path of the perfect data dictionary often end up
1. Is hard to maintain
2. Is hard to use, and doesn’t answer everyone’s questions
3. Is generally out-of-date (in one way or another)
4. Ends up getting deprecated
Fortunately, we have better ways of achieving the same goals with less maintenance burde
What are the other options?
We believe the best way to approach the problem is by using the right tools for the right job
solutions for users at each level of the data literacy curve.
For the non-technical business user:
They’re really looking for an actionable, easy-to-use, single source of truth. Data – signed, s
our opinion, the best solution involves showing rather than telling: a well-architected and w
general, we believe that non-technical business users should not be writing SQL and theref
dictionary as traditionally constituted.
We do not want to go into a full-fledged comparison between BI platforms here, but whatev
here are the key features you’ll want to keep an eye out for:
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1. Single Source of Truth
Data used to drive business decisions comes from a single system/platform
Business logic is centrally defined, curated, and easily reproducible
KPIs are clearly defined, well-organized, and shared across the organization
2. Ad-hoc Exploration
High-level KPIs are rarely actionable – so allowing users to take the next step in s
discovering, and drilling down into the data is critical
3. Right Level of Abstraction
Naively exposing every piece of data will create a difficult, confusing, and intimida
Develop a curated, properly labeled, easy-to-navigate dataset (with complex joins
abstracted away from the end user)
4. Balance between governance and democratization
Do you allow people to save their own reports/dashboards? Define their own dim
transformations?
5. Self Documenting Code
In a good BI tool, it should be easy for business users to find existing reports/dashboards t
modify (or leverage as a starting point for additional exploration). The tool should provide g
avoid making common mistakes, and provide enough metadata (either through tool-tips or
business users both find what they are looking for and avoid common pitfalls. The differenc
and a data dictionary is that the tool tips live with the data as they are actually used by bus
the post-business-logic description of the entity which is generally much more useful to end
If your BI tool has these qualities, then your business users will not need (or wouldn’t get an
dictionary. Since the BI tool should help business users answer business questions, your bu
have to know anything about the underlying data structures in order to achieve their goals.
users asking for a data dictionary, you should be thinking about building them better tools r
documenting the current suboptimal system.
Depending on the size of your team, the structure of your organization, and the complexity
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may need to augment your BI tool with some additional tooling in the form of a wiki or know
below). For your non-technical users this is best used as a reference for “who is the expert”
to if they want to get started in a new domain area.
For the business / data analyst: For the people in your organization who are rolling up the
the data, there should be two sources of documentation that are most relevant:
A self-documenting and searchable code-base
A knowledge-base or wiki of high-level descriptions
The first place an analyst should look when trying to understand a table or column is in the
and manages that table or column. If, for example, you are using Looker as your BI tool on
analysts should be able to quickly and easily search those code bases to find the correct se
code base is well-architected and you follow best practices for programming style and read
straightforward for the analyst to review and comprehend the relative logic. If your analyst c
comprehend the logic, you should consider refactoring your code base or implementing mo
practices.
For the types of knowledge that are not easy to see in the code itself, it can be helpful to ha
that people can review for high-level information about a given concept. This documentatio
catalog of “what is in the data warehouse” but rather should include information about the
behind broad concepts in the business:
What is (NPS, ARR, Conversion, insert your concept here), how do we define it, how is
business logic), why is it important, and what are the next steps?
Important context and history (“this is the story of why it takes 5 joins to connect our h
coupon code system”).
Any potential “gotchas” (“we know that this logic is incorrect for some number of user
checked it impacted less than 1% of users and so we ignored it”).
Between these two sources of information, analysts should have everything they need to un
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of the data they have.
For the data scientist / engineer:
For the most technical folks on your team, you can add some additional tooling that can he
that will be most useful to them. In addition to the self-documenting code-base (which is
concept in this blog post), you can think about adding:
Knowledge-repo: This tool is used to keep track of analyses that have happened in the
resource for both analysts and data scientists to see 1) example uses of certain data s
are related to the topic they are working on. Seeing how someone else used a given ta
for someone to understand its intricacies.
Programmatically-generated ERDs: rather than maintaining these types of documenta
programmatically-generated ERDs or data-heritage DAGs (from a tool like dbt or airflo
ensure that your documentation actually matches your code.
Architecture Design Documentation: this is often an artifact of the development proces
depth description of requirements, technical decisions made, architecture, etc.
Other important things to keep in mind:
You need a strong data organization to maintain these different avenues of documenta
You need a data-driven culture of cross-functional collaboration to make all of the piec
What are data dictionaries useful for?
There are two use-cases where having something like a data dictionary can be valuable:
1. If you are a data-as-a-service (DaaS) provider, then your data dictionary is effectively d
will be critical to your clients
2. For compliance / security reasons, you have complex restrictions on who can access
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!
warehouse
These two use-cases are pretty niche, and we do not believe they apply to most internal-fa
second use-case is a bit tricky because what you want to build is not a “data dictionary” as
“helpful” metadata about tables and columns) but rather an access-spec which can hierarc
different parts of a warehouse (at the schema, table, column, and row level). We have some
build an effective tool for this, so if you’re working on something like that, please reach out!
Conclusion
Overall, we think that data dictionaries tend not to be very useful, and a data team’s time w
maintaining a well-organized code-base that is self-documenting and providing well-design
that do not require much documentation. Where possible, teams should make use of tools
generating documentation directly from code in order to prevent concept drift.
Michael Kaminsky & Alex Jia
Check out the Author pages for Alex and Michael
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The Attribution Dilemma Adding Context to Your Analysis with
Annotations
The Data S