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?

It’s all in the timing…

We are all aware of the importance of timing in telling a good joke, but timing is also crucial in a business context.

If you get the timing wrong you can waste effort and potentially damage your reputation.

The affordance of data and applications

I recently attended and presented at the PLM10 conference in Bremen. One of the other attendees, Professor Chris McMahon of Bath University, suggested that affordance was an additional quality attribute that should be considered when assessing data quality.

I had not heard of this term before, so have done a little research to find out more.

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?

The Data Zoo – White paper now available for download

Our popular series of blog posts describing the different behaviours to be found in The Data Zoo and how they impact data quality has now been updated, enhanced and published as a White Paper. This White Paper is also available in ebook form from the Data Quality Pro web site.