For the last couple of months, I’ve been exploring the many challenges an organization can face in a typical data onboarding initiative. This week, I thought it’d be helpful to provide a wrap-up with a few additional considerations to help the process run as smoothly as possible. Here’s a quick 5-point checklist:
- Have you allocated roles and responsibilities? These resources can be internal or external, including Project Manager, Data Engineer, Data Analyst, Solutions Architect, Data Governance Specialist, and QA Testing.
- Is your workback schedule finalized? Breaking down the multiple steps in the process – data requirements, technical infrastructure setup, data mapping, data extraction, data profiling, testing, go-live data migration and monitoring – helps ensure timely delivery.
- Have you defined the operational procedures? This goes hand-in-hand with the workback schedule, setting parameters and formulating documentation for data collection and validation, data integration and testing and data deployment and monitoring.
- What is your mid-term/long-term vision for your data needs? Plan for future technological synergies with your organization’s changing priorities. For example, you may want to extend your capabilities beyond security mastering to entity mastering, or to price mastering.
- How flexible are your vendor contracts? As your organization evolves, you will want to have the flexibility to modify data vendor contracts so that you’re not locked into a long-term commitment that can’t meet your immediate data needs.
The success of your data onboarding initiative really depends on having a well-defined scope of work but at the same time, having a clear enough vision of what the future may hold. Striking this balance will enable you to adapt to changing needs as they rise and remain focused on maintaining a data strategy that’s foundational in meeting your organization’s business objectives.