Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

DATA DICTIONARY AND DATA KEY USERS

After you have implemented some form of data governance function, you can now start building the wish list of variables and analysis tables that will feed some of your recurring and ongoing business analytics needs. Therefore, the next step in your quest to lay the data foundation is to find out whether a data dictionary exists for each of your key data elements and, if not, create one. Word documents, relational databases, CD, Excel, or any documents could help you understand the structure and the meaning of the data. Sometimes you will get lucky, and this will be in a standard format. Most often, however, you will be creating or modifying it to suit your needs.

After you get acquainted with the existing documentation, it is very important to meet with people who are currently using the data. Oftentimes, not everything will be documented, and they will give you a better sense of what is being used and what not to use. In many cases, certain data could be available in the organization, but because people “in the know” are aware of its inferior quality, it is not used. It is always good to rely on the data experts in your organization, because they are more likely to discover and be aware of data issues, compared to you, because you are starting over with an investigation from the beginning.