All of our data is equal, some is more equal than others

To paraphrase George Orwell’s quotation from the novel ‘1984’ “All of our data is equal, some is more equal than others”. If all data is treated equally, how can we prioritise our efforts?

Criticality is a method used in many situations to identify things that are of more importance to an organisation and may require more/different treatment. Examples of where criticality is used include managing physical assets, operating chemical or process plant and transport network planning.

How does the concept of criticality apply to data?

Reinventing the wheel

I’ve come across a few examples recently where people either have, or have nearly, re-invented something that already existed in an organisation.

This can be termed “re-inventing the wheel”. Clearly, such activities would be a waste of resources, but what was the nature of the problems, and how could they be avoided?

Does data make you lonely ?!?

A current topic in the news in the United Kingdom relates to a report by the Mental Health Foundation about how modern life leads to people being more lonely and the physical and mental health impacts of this loneliness. In a radio interview today, an interviewee was heard to state that modern working life makes them more lonely, because they have to spend so much time entering data to do their jobs, that they can’t afford the time to interact with colleagues as part of their work.

So does this mean that data makes you lonely?!?

The Data Accident Investigation Board

At a recent talk by Professor Graham Braithwaite of Cranfield University on the role and work of the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the approaches taken to investigating an accident, it made me think about whether similar approaches may work for data.

This did not immediately become a blog post, but having read Jim Harris’s blog post on the “The Poor Data Quality Jar” and the subsequent discussion of this post, I resurrected this idea.

Do you think there is a place for the Data Accident Investigation Board?

Computer software triage

Triage is a technique used in medical emergencies to help prioritise scarce care resources towards those most in need. Various versions of triage have been developed and refined since the concept was first developed in the First World War.

Similar concepts can be applied to the large range of software that some organisation end up owning.