What data quality is (and what it is not)

Like the radar system pictured above, data quality is a sentinel; a detection system put in place to warn of threats to valuable assets. Keeping with the analogy, strategic leaders, not the tactical resources, decide where and when to place these systems. Data quality is strategic, not tactical. It has tactical applications, but it is very much a calculated implementation of a system used to guard critical assets.

Prior to that implementation, organizations decide on which assets are critical, when to start detecting threats, and where is the most effective way to solicit threat warnings. That is data governance. A strategic outline of what is critical (note: not important, critical), when the need for warning is most effective, and where is it most likely to provide ample warning.

Data quality supports data governance. And since you cannot support that which does not exist, you need data governance before having effective data quality. In other words, you need a well defined strategy before you can have a tactical plan which supports that strategy.

I have read many articles, whitepapers, blog posts, and so forth that get into the minutiae of data quality. I have written about the minutiae myself. But before you understand that data quality is the implementation and early warning detection system for a more comprehensive and strategic data governance plan, all that detail will likely be misplaced and guard a non-critical asset.

If your governance plan centers around data security, point your early warning system at entry and end points which can threaten that secure strategy. If your data governance plan centers around data accuracy, patrol the landscape of systems that threaten accuracy.

Hopefully, subtly, I have demonstrated that a governance plan needs to be centered around a theme. Too many alarms going off in too many directions provides no more clear a direction than no alarms at all. Another reason why having a strategy is more important than tactics. Find out what threatens the end goal the most and focus on that.

In short, data quality is not a plan. It is an implementation of a plan; an early warning detection system to monitor threats to the plan.