Tag: Alignment
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The data quality challenge, in pictures
Data quality in most large organizations is commonly known to be rather lacking. Most would argue that things haven’t gotten much better since this 2007 Accenture study found that “Managers Say the Majority of Information Obtained for Their Work Is Useless”. To some, quotes like that are shocking, but if you think about how information…
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Project managers: is yellow the new green?
I’ve never understood the obsession with “green” status among IT application development project managers, and the intense pressure put on them to “stay green” by the program management offices (PMOs) they report to. We would benefit from a cultural shift away from avoiding yellow status. For those not in the field, it is in vogue…
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Abstracting and recombining all the way to the bank
In the past I’ve never understood what people really mean they say “think outside the box” but Jim Harris, in a recent OCDQ blog post, helped me figure it out. Mr. Harris ends with this provocative line: “the bottom line is Google and Facebook have socialized data in order to capitalize data as a true corporate asset.” The post…
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Data quality and data governance lessons from national health care
Who would want to be a national health care administrator? Who would want the responsibility for managing health care and formulating health policy for tens or hundreds of millions of people? It seems obvious that such decisions would rely on quality data. A recent interview impressed upon me how much data managers can learn from a…
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Consider the source in health care data integration
The Atlantic, not typically a technical rag, recently presented an article by business and economics editor Megan McArdle on health care data integration entitled “Paging Dr. Luddite”. The article brings to a mass audience an understanding of both the importance and difficulty of data integration, but the title and general anti-healthcare-professional tone seem counterproductive.
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Special considerations in health care data
I’ve worked with health care data for the past few years, and in a recent conversation I realized it might be valuable to detail some of the complexities of health care data for those who might enter this growing field. Of course these considerations aren’t unique to health care, but they are typical of the…
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Building a writing culture in application development
One of the key skills needed in today’s IT shop is communication, and one of the best ways to improve ability to communicate is to write blog posts and articles. In spite of “IT guy” stereotypes, communication and analytical thinking about business are among the most important skills in application development. Developers, analysts, and managers…
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Agile development: rugby analogy considered harmful
Recently my friend Mark Hudson posted about the inappropriateness of the term “sprint” for an agile project phase, preferring the cycling term “interval.” That post really struck a chord with me. As a rugby union fan and former wing/fullback I’ve always thought the whole rugby analogy was wrong. Agile development is continuous and fluid, yet…
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Metadata goals, ROI, and point solutions
Recently there has been a long, and very interesting, discussion of do-it-yourself versus third-party metadata tools on LinkedIn’s TDWI BI and DW discussion forum (membership required to follow the link). I have followed but haven’t commented, but I suppose I contributed when Information Management kindly published my article on DIY metadata. The discussion is extremely…
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Business requirements up front
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso It is an old story: about 30% of IT application projects succeed, 45% are “challenged,” and the other quarter fail…