Establishing 'Making it Happen' as a 'Formal & Predictable' Discipline

Data Quality Program Analyze Phase and Business case Closure	Data Quality Organization Roles

ENCYCLOPEDIA→ Enterprise Intelligence → - Data Quality → - Data Quality Program →

Data Quality Policy

Data quality policy can be like a clause in the constitution of the company, which help people take tough calls in the moments of Devil's alternative. For example, would you give in to sales pressure of technology spend on new CRM v/s implementing a more robust monitoring systems benchmark OR would you invest on redesigning your front end capture systems v/s using more glossy paper for card statement? A policy is useful when it guides people in moments of truth.

Data Quality policy is a clause in the constitution of an organization, which defines the purpose, sincerity and procedures for enforcing data quality. It has the following components:

Statement of Purpose – Why do we want to have data quality?

Typical Statements- To become the most admired company, ensure customer satisfaction, achieve better share-holder value..

Back-Ground –

The details of the variety & volume of data and past experience on data quality.

Typical statements- We have over 50 systems, 8 tera-byte of data. We have low audit rating in terms of data quality and internal control. We are planning to introduce three more channels over next one year. We have just implemented a large core production system..

High Level Policy –

States all aspects of Data Quality Policy. This part is important

Typical Statements:

This policy assigns a organization wide owner of data quality.
This policy assigns Data Custodians for each Data Element.
This policy assigns Data Stewards for core areas.
This policy lays down the minimal procedural imperatives for data assurance during any change management within an organization.
This policy lays down the minimal procedural imperatives for correction of data.
This policy lays down the minimal imperatives for data quality monitoring.
This policy lays down the minimal imperatives for data storage.
This policy defines the roles and responsibility for data quality & management.
This policy expects a full adherence to data quality policy.

Data Quality Roles & Responsibilities –

This part lays down the detailed roles and responsibilities of all related to data quality. The details of typical roles & responsibilities are included in Data Quality Management Organization.

Data Quality Assurance methods-

It contains a high level List of Data Quality Assurance Methods. Refer Data Quality Assurance. Please note that this part will not talk about the procedures.

Data Quality Procedures -

Please refer to DQ Program Deliverable- Data Quality Procedures. These procedures are typically stated at a high level in form of ‘minimum required norms’ leaving the flexibility to the ‘Head of Information management’ OR ‘Data Stewards’ (Refer DQ Program Deliverable- Data Quality Organization) to frame the detailed procedures.