2012 Quarterly Review (Part 2)

Dec 12, 2012 by Jim Harris in Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Migration, Data Quality, Master Data Management

Welcome to the unofficial 2012 quarterly review that I have decided to perform on the Data Roundtable. In this four-part series, I will select and summarize my favorite posts published on this blog during each quarter of this year, selecting one post per contributor per month.

Part 1 of this series covered blog posts from January, February and March.

Part 2 covers blog posts from April, May and June.

April 2012

The Lack of Quality Data — As part of her Facing Maturity series, Joyce Norris-Montanari ponders the dilemma of being told that the data quality is “just fine” before a data migration.

Harmonizing Hard-Coded Metadata — David Loshin explores the discrepancy between presumption of logical naming for data elements and their corresponding uses in application code.

The Lies We Tell Data — Jim Harris truthfully blogs about the questionable quality of self-reported data, especially the volume and variety of user-generated data on the Internet.

Managerial Breakthrough — As part of his Influential Books series, Thomas Redman reviews the book Managerial Breakthrough by Joseph M. Juran.

Little Data and Dueling Data Duals — Phil Simon on the importance of getting the Little Data right first, i.e., take steps to improve individual records and you’ll get more out of Big Data.

Big Data – We’ve Only Just Begun — Dylan Jones, channeling Karen Carpenter, foretells that for some traditional businesses, Big Data means big business and in particular, big business change.

May 2012

Use it or Lose it! — As part of Big Data Week, Joyce Norris-Montanari explains that it’s crucial to make sure you gather big data requirements that are right for your company.

“In the Air Tonight” — As part of Big Data Week, Rich Murnane, channeling Phil Collins, wonders if all the Hadoop hoopla about big data is all a misunderstanding.

Addressing Usability of Acquired Data — David Loshin provides four questions to consider to assure the quality of externally-acquired data and determine its fitness for (re)purposes.

Structure and Quality — As part of Big Data Week, Jim Harris explains why big data requires us to stop fiercely defending our traditional data management perspectives about structure and quality.

Dangerous to Sit this one Out — As part of Big Data Week, Thomas Redman argued for a better definition, while detailing the dangers of a “wait and see” attitude as it pertains to big data.

On Uncertainty and Data Minimalism — Phil Simon recommends embracing the uncertainty in your decision-making business processes — and using your data to minimize it.

Solving the Data Migration Target Puzzle — Dylan Jones completes his two-part series on the challenge of migrating data to a target environment that isn’t fully implemented.

June 2012

Playing at the Playground! — Joyce Norris-Montanari explores the potential abuses of leveraging a playground environment for application development.

Where the Wild Things Are — Rich Murnane explains that Data Geeks are the Wild Things with vivid imaginations and the ability to stare down data-related monsters — “Let the wild rumpus begin!”

Skewed Little Results – Do They Really Matter? — As part of a series of posts on aggregate metrics, David Loshin questions the use of averages as a guide for performance improvement.

Is Social MDM Going the Wrong Way? — Concluding a four-part series, Jim Harris argues instead of getting social data about customers into MDM, get the existing data about customers out of MDM.

The Trouble with Computers — As part of his Influential Books series, Thomas Redman reviews the book The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity by Thomas K. Landauer.

Fast Times and the Great Data Ownership Debate — Phil Simon examines the challenge of assigning data ownership with some help delivered by Jeff Spicoli and Mr. Hand.

How to Speed up Data Quality Rule Deployment — Dylan Jones discusses why you should leverage the techniques of rule layering and Pareto rule building during your data quailty projects.

Thank You

On behalf of all the contributors to the Data Roundtable, thank you for reading and commenting on the posts published on this blog throughout the year. Your readership is deeply appreciated.

Next week, Part 3 of this series will cover blog posts from July, August and September.

Tags: Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Migration, Data Quality, Master Data Management