I’m not much of a fisherman – quite honestly it drives me crazy to spend all that time and money without actually catching anything. I’ve never really seen the point.
For many business people data management projects and budgets can also seem to be rather pointless spend. This is because data management projects are frequently driven by technologists who do not speak the business language – we loose the business user.
So, what has this got to do with fishing? Many fishing enthusiasts will tell you that fishing is not about catching fish – it is about having an enjoyable day outdoors, enjoying a couple of beers and relaxing. Catching fish is a bonus!
In the same way, data management is not about data!
It has to be about addressing business issues caused by data. A business person is far more likely to see the point of a project to “reduce overall debtor’s days by x%” than they are in a project intended to “improve the accuracy of addresses”. Focussing on the business issue also allows us to focus on the data necessary to address a specific problem, rather than trying to address everything.
As data management professionals we have to recognise that our ability to sell our value to business is very heavily dependent on speaking the right language, and deliver results that can be linked back to business issues. How are you selling data management in your organisation?
This post was first published on the dataqualitymatters blog
