Market Driven Data Quality (Data Darwinism)
A contrarian idea to improve data quality; let "market forces" like peer pressure, earn-in, and competitive prioritization encourage data owners to do their own quality monitoring.
IT Budget Hacking (w$$t)
Some block-and-tackle IT management stuff for today - taking a long, hard look at the IT budget, a task that is less-than-pleasant for many. Most of my peers have already cut any and all low hanging fruit - it's time to start thinking aggressively. Software Maintenance for the Small Stuff Most have concentrated on their ERP and other large, strategic vendors - but what about all of those little invoices that come every year? I'm talking about development tools, management…
Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (Results)
As previously noted, I've been doing a lot of discussion and data crunching around "Master Data Management" lately - so I've "bootstrapped" a little market research project. It's still a work in process - responses are trickling in - but I thought I might take some time to summarize what I am hearing to date. A document is available for download here ... the super summary follows below. Survey Methodology Please note: I am obviously not a professional market research…
If I Told You a Fractal Solution, Could You Change the CEO’s Mind?
As the new year approaches, debates over the "value" of IT and business projects intensify; it's not holiday stress, but the excitement of the approaching New [fiscal] Year. Lately, I'm hearing more about the struggle to quantify business value, especially when selecting those few projects that will "make the cut". We will definitely iterate on our scoring framework, adding a cost / benefit template to facilitate more apples-to-apples comparisons between projects (yes, don't scoff - it is possible - more…
Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How)
I've been asked a lot of questions about "Master Data Management" over the past few weeks - what does it mean, who does it, and what are some tools and metrics that organizations are using to reign in this important aspect of ERP and analytics systems. I started reaching out to the folks in my professional network with some results, but I thought I might be able to leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to get input from far and wide. This…