The Journey Begins here...

The Road to Data Quality... it's a rocky, unsealed, dusty, windy, one lane country road. Trying to progress from a smallsville in the middle of nowhere, to make it to the organised highways and freeways of the big smoke is a long journey. More often than not, the information on how to get from the start of your journey to the end are there. There are countless different road maps, start point and end point GPS coordinates, you can see a thousand different satellite views on the area you are to travel through. The aim of this blog is to be like the navigator in your car, describing the twists, turns, and journey as it eventuates.

OK. Without wasting too much time on metaphor and imagery, what I'm providing here is a "how to" guide from beginning to end on Data Quality. Over the last few months I have started a new position with an organisation with no formal Data Governance policy or framework, including the lack of Data Quality policy, framework and procedure. While there is a wealth of information on the internet, it all seems to be for large commercial enterprise and doesn't seem to cover basics enough. Organisational Change. Embedding Corporate Culture. The big scary metamorphasis from an ungoverned wild west into an organised metropolitan centre. Data Quality must start from the ground up, and if an organisation does not embrace the most basic principles - you will be profiling, mining, and cleansing data till the cows come home but wasting your time.

So... to all those interested parties out there - This is your starting point. The blog may be best to follow in a chronological order, from start to finish. Witness the issues, risks, threats, opportunities, cultural shift, and implementation of a data quality project (in vague terms so I don't violate any NDA's) for the less technical to relate to. Technical aspects are essential, it IS data we are talking about, however they come later in the plan. The first step is raising the awareness, building policy & procedure, and laying the foundation towards the future path towards a paved road...