A Discussion of Data Management

A slightly heretical, almost entirely true take on data management for the modern mid-sized business.

THE CHALLENGE
The average organization spends too much, earns too little and otherwise generally misses out on many opportunities to increase its success, all for want of effective data management, whatever name you give it.

One reason for this is that most data problems are really management problems. (See our Program Management & Transaction Control sections).

Notwithstanding this, data requirements (if not problems) do exist, and great care must be taken in planning and implementing data management systems.

The second reason is that most data management 'solutions' (the term currently fashionable) simply aren't. As a consequence, the average organization has implemented the wrong system or has despaired of even trying to design and establish a comprehensive system at all.

WHAT TO DO
If you want to profit from decreasing costs and increasing revenues by managing data (yours or others'), it is vital that your approach be carefully planned with consideration of the 5 Fundamental Principles of effective data management. Data management must :

Serve the organization's mission.
Select or design the system to accomplish necessary things, not things that have been packaged with a 'data management' product.

Match the organization's operations.
One size DOES NOT fit all; run from solutions that require you to change valid business processes.

Perform rational business processes.
NEVER automate bad processes, especially not those that were established to accommodate older automation or lack of automation.

Employ the least proprietary applications, file formats and distribution methods.
There is no excuse for locking yourself into products or procedures that cannot be replaced without starting over.

Follow the simplest design that will do the job.
Attempting to serve organizational complexity with system complexity is folly; regardless of what conventional wisdom is pitching, having many similar simple systems (controlled by a higher tier simple system, if necessary) is ALWAYS superior to having a single convoluted and incomprehensible system. This is gospel except and until you are faced with managing something on the scale of aircraft carrier construction, and maybe even then.
To flog the sea faring metaphor: Professionals with impeccable credentials, highly evolved methodologies and complex systems built, equipped, staffed and sailed the Titanic. Amateurs who understood what was needed and what was available built and used the Ark (on time and probably under budget).

Follow these principles, and you will have to be particularly creative to build a bad data management system. In addition, a couple of other rubrics are worth obeying:

When in doubt, fall back on GOOD MANAGEMENT principles. They'll serve you better than most of the current crop of 'IT Solutions' or what-have-you. Place good managers in positions responsible for your top level design, and require that they guide and work closely with your IT (MIS, whatever) Department; to make sure you'll get the data/information/transaction support that your operations need.

Read as little as possible about data management before you begin designing your system! Well, not really, but the more you know about data management technology, the more apt you are to select a solution without defining what it is that needs to be solved. Good system design does not start with the comparison of alternative products. Good system design starts with an informed executive identifying the data that is needed and then determining where, in what format and on what schedule that data is needed. After that, select tools that will get the needed data from where it is to where it is needed, in a usable form, on time.

With this foundation, and a rational plan for what is needed in hand, it makes sense to start thinking about implementation.

ENTER SHINDOGU, et al
The WEB and its Internet siblings have spawned tons of applications, systems, routines and methods for managing data. It seems everyone with a keyboard is concocting and selling "robust" applications to manage your data, or compiling and selling you the one they wrote to manage their data. Miraculously, they have created products that will debug, organize and speed up your data without their having known anything about either your data or your management requirements (some of these are very good, just be careful - to see examples of modern WEB data systems that were selected for their efficiency and economy, click HERE, then come back and we'll get on with the show) .

We are told that "shindogu" is a Japanese term for the art of creating an invention that solves a problem while creating other, new problems (we're not linguists, but we're told not to confuse this with "chindogu" which is merely a useless implement). The Germans would call it "schlimmbesserung", a solution that makes the problem worse. In English these are, perhaps, "deprovements". No matter what you call them, judicious and energetic pursuit of foolish "solutions" has resulted in the creation of gazillions of products purporting to be data tools. Don't worry, as one of the genuine experts in http implementations said not too long ago, "Fortunately, most of it is (awful)".

Beware of packaged "solutions". Find the tools that do what you need done, and stay away from the overblown, the single purpose, the rigid, the arcane and the wasteful. Too many of the big "solutions" are cumbersome, bandwidth hogging, slow, inefficient, costly monsters that load you down with overhead, require that you staff up with dedicated tamers, and/or incur perpetual support from (guess who?) the vendor.

By all means, if after you have completed your analysis and planning, you find an application product that satisfies your data management needs, is cost effective and doesn't make you captive to a vendor who may decide to re-price or go under, use it. If not (the normal case), design a system from available parts, including parts you build or have built using standard processes and formats. That is about all there is to rational data management systems design-

define your data needs and your data resources,
hire or engage expert business process flow analysis to assure efficient post-implementation operations, and
hire or engage technology implementors who understand and will abide by the 5 Fundamental Principles of Data Management
install and maintain suitable tools

Put another way, the coarse steps are:

Process analysis and data analysis
Requirements analysis and system recommendations
Incremental system implementation via prototyping and user feedback
System maintenance/enhancement/upgrade

How formally you follow a regimented methodology should depend entirely on the complexity of the system that needs improvement. Even though regimentation is normally an impediment to progress, for complex systems, it may be advisable to formalize the process and create task plans to monitor progress and assure that you effectively perform crucial steps such as:

Reviewing data and processes
Interviewing knowledgeable management and users
Preparing functional requirements
Preparing system top-level design
Preparing data handling recommendations
Surveying marketplace and developing cost estimates
Preparing detailed system design
Selecting resources
Producing an implementation plan in cooperation with management and technical personnel
Implementing your preliminary test case
Reviewing and updating the implementation plan
Implementing the plan, incrementally

Oh, one more thing. We're assuming here that you are not undertaking critical data management improvements until you are satisfied that your organization's business processes are sound. If they are, eschew large scale business process reengineering, and be careful of solutions providers who tout a "Change Management" capability, particularly if it includes any 'proven methodology'. Check to see if the offeror/vendor is touting processes that are inflexible and excruciating to implement. Quiz them and their references before starting a project to make sure that you won't be the proud owner of a shiny new system that requires you to perform exactly as the vendor intended. Many "robust solutions" systems are awful, and should be avoided unless your current business processes are inappropriate to your business and your staff is worthless.

To help in persevering toward a system that promotes business success, go back and read fundamental principle #5, often. Or contact us, we'll read it to you. We'll also advise you on resource selection, business process review and improvement, incremental implementation and opportunities to profit from your new data management capabilities.

With us working together, you'll wind up with an economical, efficient system that does what you need and can be enhanced downstream as required, without scrapping what you have invested. Our systems expertise is founded on a superior understanding of transactions, management and operations. It is based on years of experience in small and large business automation. We approach every job with an open mind, but all things being equal, it's likely that we'll suggest a design/architecture that exploits available WEB Systems resources. Click HERE to see why.

At AN, Ltd. we are comfortable either performing tasks and securing resources under the direction and control of your management, or supporting your personnel as they perform.

What's so special about AN, LTD?