Data Consensus

Consensus Building

Defining

• Can you provide a short description of the consensus in the organization?

• Would you describe it as Above Average, Average, Below Average, or Poor?

• Is consensus on critical data deemed important?

• Who drives consensus-building in the organization?

Process

• How would you describe the consensus process in the organization?

• Is it driven top-down or bottom-up? Advantages & Disadvantages of the approach?

• How has the consensus process been embraced by the organization? If not, why?

• How are disagreements resolved?

• What is the approval process for consensus discussions?

Timeframe

• Is enterprise consensus on critical aspects of the business important?

• Where and when is it deem unimportant?

• In what areas does the organization deem data consensus is important?

• Who is driving data consensus in the organization?

Glossary of Terms

Existence

• Does a glossary of terms exist for critical business data?

• Does each application system generate its glossary?

• Do data marts and data warehouses provide a glossary?

• If they don’t exist, have they been discussed?

• Would it be difficult to create a glossary for the pricing team? Finance?

• Why would it be difficult?

• Where is the glossary stored? How is accessibility managed?

Ownership

• Who owns these data glossaries? Multiple owners?

• Who maintains them? Updated regularly?

• How is their ownership established? Is it recognized by others?

Procedures

• What are the steps in their creation?

• How many people are involved? Departments?

• What does the approval process look like? How many steps?

• How are any disagreements resolved?

Competing Structures

Existence

• Do multiple systems have redundant (modifiable) data for critical business data?

• Do multiple systems have replicated (unmodifiable) data for critical business data?

• How do we know that redundant or replicated data exists?

• Does a cross-reference model exist detailing them?

• Does replicated and redundant data exist for critical pricing data?

Ownership

• Who owns these systems containing replicated or redundant data?

• Are they aware of their similarities in data? Differences?

• How did dual ownership of this data occur?

• Has dual ownership of data caused problems in the past?

• Has dual ownership of redundant and replicated data caused problems in the past?

Procedures

• How is the replicated or redundant data validated?

• Does a process exist for merging them?

• Is there a process or plan to eradicate replicated or redundant data?

• What is the risk assessment of this type of data? Who performs this assessment?

Golden Records

Existence

• Is there a single repository where critical business data can be found?

• Does this repository consolidate data from multiple systems?

• Does it provide a complete picture of the organization’s data? Partial?

• If partial, then which critical business data is represented? Which isn’t?

• Are customer, product, and pricing included in this?

Ownership

• Who owns this repository?

• Is it singular ownership or a board of consensus?

• Who is responsible for maintaining it?

• Who is responsible for validation and cleansing?

• Who provides access to it to the organization?

Procedures

• How is the repository updated? Who manages the updates?

• What data quality control is in place?

• How is the quality validated? Who does this?

• Is the data transformed before being loaded? Who does this?

• What types of transformations are performed?