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Data Quality is the foundation for all data and systems activities within a corporation.
Quality data is required to deliver correct information to decision-makers who will
leverage it to gain a competitive advantage in the market.
Bardess will work with your team to assess data quality across the enterprise
or within specific business functions. We will identify key data elements and business
rules, assess data for common defects, create rules or recommend actions for fixing
data, and create metrics to detect defects as they enter a system/database.
The Bardess Data Quality Analysis Methodology
The Bardess Data Quality Analysis is comprised of eight primary offerings. Our consultants
will work to develop an entire quality program or augment your current data quality
initiatives in any stage where you need outside expertise.
Data Assessment Plans
Bardess consultants will work with you to set objectives and develop a comprehensive
plan to assess your data assets. The plan will help you to identify your assets
and target areas for analysis and improvement. In addition, we will assist you in
structuring a work plan to identify source systems, system interfaces and data repositories
needed to support key target business functions and data needs; assess system data
quality and usability; identify data flow gaps; cleanse or regenerate data; and
measure the results.
Outputs:
Assessment Plan
Work Plan and Schedules
Data Inventory & Classification
Bardess will perform a detailed inventory of your data assets and systems and classify
the information into identifiable groupings. We will identify legacy data repositories
needed to support key business functions and their underlying sources of data, as
well as interfaces. We will assist in determining the main data sources and additional
adjunct data requirements to support the business functions. Bardess will develop
an inventory catalog of legacy systems and associated table and data element listings.
The process will include identification of key master file data (customer, product,
service, entitlement masters) within and across all relevant systems.
The following tasks may be performed for both the legacy, as well as the new system
structures:
Identify current objectives and plans
Identify and review Legacy data sources
Identify what data is applicable to the target system
Determine existing data stewardship and ownership responsibilities
Determine interfaces to data sources and related functionality
Determine existing data stewardship and ownership responsibilities
Classify data into logical grouping
Outputs:
Data/Systems Inventory Catalog
Data Flow Analysis
Bardess will perform a Data Flow Analysis for your company or business function.
The analysis involves a detailed evaluation of existing corporate data from legacy
systems as well as data that was extracted, moved, or changed during migrations
to new systems. We analyze the data flows and identify the true meaning of the data
and how it is used by business functions. We will document both the existing As-Is
and the future To-Be flows from a logical business model perspective as well as
through physical database designs.
Outputs:
Data Source Inventory
Data Definitions
As-Is Data Flow Model
To-Be Data Flow Model
Business Rules Discovery and
Documentation
The Business Rules offering encompasses the identification and documentation of
business rules defined by business owners. Bardess will gather, classify and prioritize
rule information from business owners and obtain success-level criteria. The rules
may be obtained from a variety of methods including facilitated user workshops and
structured, one-on-one interviews. Bardess can work individually with your business
team to create the business rules or lead workshop sessions to identify rules. Bardess
will document the rules and identify gaps based upon initial assessments and obtain
concurrence from the business owners.
Outputs:
Business Rule Discovery
Rules Workshop Facilitation
Targeted User Interviews
Business Rule Analysis & Classification
Business Rule Documentation
Data Assessment
The Data Assessment encompasses the most critical activities within the Data Quality
Analysis. It is the cornerstone supporting all subsequent analysis activities. In
this comprehensive offering, Bardess will perform an inspection and evaluation of
key data elements in your installed systems or those defined for migration or data
clean up. The assessment may be performed throughout the enterprise or on targeted
functional business systems.
During the assessment process, Bardess will uncover anomalies or inaccuracies in
the data and focus upon the impacts to business rules, conversion issues and target
functionality impacts. Each data element will be assessed using a variety of measurements
intended to highlight and delineate the validity, usability and consistency of the
data.
Bardess will perform 10 critical assessment tests on your data consisting of Primary
Data Quality (PDQ) Assessments as well as Pragmatic Information Quality Assessments.
Primary Data Quality Assessments:
Bardess will assess and measure the physical correctness and accuracy of the data
using three types of tests. These tests ensure that the data is of high quality
for corporate information systems.
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Standardized Physical Data Assessments - Completeness, Uniqueness
These primary Data Assessments can be carried out without working knowledge of existing
business rules. The assessments are carried out across all rules and are an aid
in identifying fields for business rule definitions and integrity testing.
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Customized Physical Data Assessments - Validity, Integrity, Referential Integrity,
Consistency
These Customized Assessments are directly driven by business defined rules. The
tests are usually applied after the business users have determined the specific
fields and business rules to be tested. The tests may identify data gaps and the
results may serve as primary input into remediation planning.
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Data Accuracy Assessments Accuracy, Timeliness
These Assessments are driven by business definitions and functional requirements.
The tests are among the most difficult and are usually performed on business-critical
information. The tests aid in identifying fields for business rules definition and
integrity testing and assists in measuring progress and the acceptability of business
remediation efforts.
Pragmatic Information Quality Assessments:
Bardess will assess whether the accurate data provides useful information to the
Enterprise by a qualitative group of assessments. These tests ensure that the high
quality data in corporate information systems is of value to the business users.
Valuable data has meaning (clear definitions) and an understandable presentation
to the user. Bardess will work with your business users to ensure that data is presented
in a way to support the processes within your Enterprise.
Outputs:
Primary Data Quality Assessments
Information Quality Assessments
Data Gap Analysis
In the Gap Analysis stage, Bardess will identify, quantify and summarize data gaps
using the output from the Data Assessment stage. We will produce gap analyses by
system, release and/or defined grouping of data elements. The following activities
will be performed:
Analyze results
and identify data gaps
Develop summary-level
reporting identifying the overall impact of gaps
Segment and report
gaps based upon the degree of non-compliance and
their overall
impact
Provide detailed
reports, where necessary, identifying the record and each
identified
gap requiring resolution by data element
Outputs:
Gap Analysis
Gap Reporting
Data Improvement & Remediation
Plans
Bardess will develop a remediation and improvement plan based upon previous data
assessment and gap analyses. We will develop several options for resolution and/or
correction of the identified data gaps as well as identify data enhancement and
data regeneration requirements for business critical data. Understanding where your
inaccurate data resides will allow you to prioritize where the most effective areas
for remediation are located. The planning activities may include the following:
Analysis of trends
and overall impact of gaps identified in previous gap
analysis
stage
Prioritization of
gaps by business owners
Remediation plan
development segmented by business owner
Enhancement plan
development
Communication and
coordination with business owners to finalize option(s)
chosen
for remediation and timelines
Bardess will develop remediation plans based upon the overall migration strategy.
The remediation may occur in existing (Legacy) systems, in Data Link Repositories
or at the time of conversion to a new system.
In addition, any plans to improve the data will be addressed. This may include addition
of data fields to add useful information, use of standardization tools, or verification
and/or regeneration of business critical fields with a cost/benefit analysis.
Outputs:
Data Remediation Plans
Data Improvement Plans
Cost/Benefit Analysis
Quality Measurement and Tracking
Bardess will develop quality progress reporting and data quality dashboards to measure
and track the data quality improvements. We will develop Data Quality Indices (DQIs)
to identify the quality of key data fields that impact the business functions. These
key data quality metrics will be incorporated into the Tracking Reports and Quality
Dashboards.
Bardess consultants will work with your team to:
Develop standardized methods
for business owners to provide status of
progress as it
relates to remediation plans
Confirm and validate data
updates/corrections based upon business owner
progress reporting
Develop tracking
tools to provide summary-level progress reporting and
detailed comparisons
Develop processes
to communicate results and validate the remediation plan
data improvements
back to the business users, including incompleteness or
inaccuracies.
Outputs:
Data Quality Tracking Plans
Tracking Report Requirements
Tracking/Reporting Tools
Data Quality Index (DQI) Requirements/Development
Data Quality Dashboards
-Dashboard Requirements
-Dashboard Framework and Layouts
-Dashboard Development
-Dashboard Testing
-Implementation
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