Changeability

Cleaning up act: Why should it take a new broom?

Try to find a project plan for a new business/production system implementation without a section dedicated to "data cleanup". You probably won't be able to.

Large organisations depend on accurate data for a variety of mission-critical applications. If accurate data is so important, how is it that users allow their data to become so "dirty" that they have to go through a major cleanup exercise every few years?

Think about the last time you upgraded your home PC or your cell phone. If you are like most people, chances are good that your upgrade was also associated with a mini "data cleanup" exercise - you took the opportunity to get rid of redundant data, clean up old records and to make a fresh start.

The same human dynamics that cause your PC, your cell phone address book (or your tool shed, for that matter) to become cluttered also impact on mission-critical business data. But while you can spend a Saturday afternoon every few months to straighten out that tool shed, a world-class organisation simply cannot afford to let mission critical data get compromised.

With the implementation of each new system, the expectation always arises that, this time round, after the inevitable "data cleanup exercise", data will somehow magically remain "clean". But data does not get "dirty" because of systems - it gets that way because of what system users do and don't do. To be sure, some systems with effective data validation and greater integration and automatisation will contribute to cleaner data. But if sloppy data discipline and poor compliance made the data in the old system unreliable and inaccurate, it will continue to do so with the new system.

Given that data quality is still widely misconceived of as a system function, rather than as a direct consequence of user behaviour, it is not surprising that there is little line management focus on data quality.

Perhaps change practitioners working on ERP projects also need to do more to help drive the point home. Are we doing enough in this regard?