Avoid The Epic Data Catalog Fail
By David Williams
The Road is Littered by Failed Catalog Efforts...
- A lack of critical mass of content – Catalog projects have to make a compromise decision between either narrow+deep or a wide+shallow scope of data and metadata, typically due to resource restrictions. With either approach, the chances the information a user wants is not going to be there is high until there is a critical mass (i.e. when a user searches for an asset, they need to actually find it most of the time).
- Users don’t see value from the catalog – While it’s possible to get buy-in and support for your initial data inventory effort, keeping that support going and ensuring long term buy-in is impossible unless the business is getting the value back. If they are going to a catalog and not finding what they want, they are not getting value.
- Disconnect between the effort to build a catalog and the value from using it – Before critical mass, the effort required for everyone in the organization to populate the catalog on a day-to-day basis is greater than the value they get. As an incremental task without a payback, it gets abandoned when resources are squeezed or pressure slackens.
Accelerate the Business Value of Your Data & Make it an Organizational Priority | ex-CDO advising CDOs at Data4Real | Keynote Speaker & Bestselling Author | Drove Data at Citi, Deutsche Bank, Voya and FINRA
4 年Great article! Closely echoes our experience at Voya so far.
Data Governance / Data Architect at AIG
5 年Totally agreed David. (POC, GoLive, Change Management) Execution. Your paragraph dedicated to Go Big or Go Home, summarizes my sentiments...
Writer (Self-employed)
5 年Great article. I look forward to seeing the follow-ups!
Excellent points. We've seen first hand the need to ensure your data catalog adds value out the gate, can be leveraged by/from all aspects of the business, with clear business ownership/accountability. A well designed/maintained catalog can yield huge benefit not only in understanding a consistent utilization of a data term, source, target, but also in expense management. A single data catalog source can be leveraged across many in-house applications / operational processes saving both time & money in development/maintenance costs... looking forward to the next article!
GLOBAL CHIEF DATA OFFICER | AI | DATA MANAGEMENT | DATA MODERNIZATION | DATA PRODUCTS
5 年Great article Dave!