Message from the Chapter President
by Katina Fischer
DAMA PDX is a DAMA International Affiliated Chapter. As such our charter is to promote and help educate on the best practices and established methodologies of Data Management. But what is Data Management? As defined by DAMA-I, Data Management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that deliver, control, protect and enhance the value of data and the information assets throughout their lifecycle. While there are fundamental principles that can be applied regardless of your industry or organization, how we apply and implement those principles to facilitate this will be slightly different for every organization.
Fundamentally embracing Data Management as an organizational discipline is the key that enables and facilitates the ability to manage data as an asset within the organization. To provide context, imagine for instance that your organization did not have an Accounting or Finance department. Every department or group within your organization managed their finances or capital assets independently with no central organizational oversight. That organization would probably not be in business very long. Without the fundamental principles of accounting being applied consistently across the organization it would be very difficult to manage the organizations’ capital as an asset. The same holds true with data. Data is an organizational asset, an incredibly valuable asset and one that if not managed with core governing principles and oversight will be incredibly inefficient costing an organization more in time and resources to manage the data through its lifecycle. In addition, without proper oversight it puts an organization at increased risk for violations of privacy and vulnerabilities in data security.
The following are just some common questions or needs we seek to resolve with an effective Data Management program:
- What data assets do we have?
- Is the data protected accordingly (PII)
- Where does the data reside?
- How do I gain access?
- Who is using it?
- How is it being used?
- Is it correct? Has it been validated?
- Are we speaking the same language, do we have a consistent or well defined business terminology?
- Does the data exist in silos?
- Is reporting development/turnaround slow?
- Do you need to improve data quality? Do you know your data’s quality?
- Are there regulatory requirements, data privacy & protection.
- Protect organizational knowledge and improve onboarding.
- Provide self-service capabilities.
- Improve overall organizational data literacy.
Therefore establishing a program to facilitate the management of that data as an asset is key to optimizing the efficiency of overall operations. Afterall, data is not a by-product of your operations, so careful consideration of how it is managed through its entire lifecycle is vital to efficient management of that data.
Many people use the term Data Management and Data Governance interchangeably, or set out to implement Data Governance within their organization without fully understanding where governance sits within the framework of Data Management. Developing an understanding of the bigger picture of the discipline of Data Management is key to facilitating an effective governance program as you will then understand how each knowledge area is interconnected. Governance is at the core of Data Management, governance in and of itself is not Data Management. Our goals are to help facilitate and share as a data community a better understanding of Data Management and Governance best practices. We hope you will join us in this journey as we can all help shape how Data Management evolves as a core organizational discipline.
Figure 1. DAMA Wheel of Data Management
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