Over the last few month’s our local (South African) DAMA chapter has been running a number of sessions discussing data modelling. Even in these days of “unstructured data” it seems that data modelling is needed more than ever. Why do we need a data model? Strategically, a good data model will help us to determine…
When you search on Google for “Master Data Management” you’ll have to look hard for a search result that is not vendor related. Most search results will be from software vendors about tooling related to MDM. Master Data Management seems to become a synonym for the implementation of a master data hub. On a discussion forum, I…
Last week, we talked about critical data elements – data elements that help us to achieve our priorities. Given this definition, critical data elements will vary from time to time based on the selection criteria. So what are some approaches that can be used to define critical data elements? A common approach used to categorise…
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. The challenge? To identify how a centralised set…
In metadata management we often talk about dictionaries and glossaries. What is the difference and what is the relationship between these? If we look at dictionary definitions we see that a dictionary is a work in which words and terms are defined listed in alphabetical order. A glossary is a mini-dictionary – in effect an…
John O’Gorman’s comment on last week’s post deserved its own post I’ve added my own comments below his (Solution 2) First: A couple of caveats from him The internet is out of bounds for now. These seven only apply to the enterprise – a big enough challenge in its own right. Next, metadata is only…
During the course of writing last week’s post, I found this: Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia This post does a great job of describing the common problems inherent in delivering valuable metadata – as summarized below The post was written in 2001 and referred to web site metadata. Yet in…
