Critical data elements are those data elements that are critical to success in a particular business area.

I was recently involved in a conversation with a master data management implementation team at a large South African company.

Like many large businesses, this particular business comprises a group of related businesses – each running semi-autonomously – but with potential synergies across and between group companies.

1. Critical data elements start the MDM journey
2. What are critical data elements?
3. Critical Data Elements are subject to oversight
4. Selecting Critical Data Elements (CDEs)

Critical data elements start the MDM journey

The challenge?

To identify how a centralised set of client master data can add value.

The bigger challenge?

Where to start?

With multiple group companies, each with multiple business problems and multiple stakeholders how do we reduce the problem to something tangible and achievable?

This is the goal of critical data elements (CDEs).

What are critical data elements?

“Data elements are data attributes used in running a business.” *

For example, Employee Number is a data attribute that is used for payroll and leave calculations.

“Critical data elements (CDEs) are defined as “the data that is critical to success” in a specific business area” – Rajesh Jugulum

For example, Employee Number is critical to HR processes but largely irrelevant to Customer facing activities.

Critical data elements are critical to ongoing operations

Critical data elements are used to prioritize the scope of data governance, data quality, master data management and similar data management initiatives by linking efforts to data elements that will help to achieve a specific business outcome.

For example, in many large organisations customer data may be made up of hundreds of attributes.

Critical Data Elements are subject to oversight

If our business goal is to increase contact-ability then our CDEs may include elements such as Email Addresses and Mobile Telephone Numbers.

This means that we can focus our data governance and data quality efforts on just these two elements until our business goal has been achieved and we extend our Critical Data Elements based on the next priority.

Selecting Critical Data Elements (CDEs)

In our post on choosing critical data elements we propose an approach to selecting and prioritising CDEs based on how they are used to support critical business processes, manage risks, and support reporting.

* Competing with High Quality Data: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques for Building a Successful Approach to Data Quality by Rajesh Jugulum