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…
Mention metadata management to a non-technical audience and eyes almost certainly glaze over. The importance of metadata management to IT is (I hope) obvious. Yet metadata management remains poorly invested and often poorly implemented. Here are our considerations / tips for planning a successful metadata management implementtion Start from the business Historically, metadata management approaches…
A recent post by our partner, Syncsort Trillium Software, introduces the concept of the data wedge. According to the post, which can be read here, the Data Wedge is the relationship between what data IS, what data DOES and what data MEANS. The post was inspired by a recent Trillium Software webinar on Gaining Clarity…
