Navigating the Labyrinth
The first four chapters provide an overview of data management:
Chapter 1: The Importance of Managing Data – Explains what data
management is, and how managing data as an asset can help your
organization.
Chapter 2: Data Management Challenges – Outlines why managing
data differs from managing other assets and resources.
Chapter 3: DAMA’s Data Management Principles – Explains principles
of effective data management that will help you overcome the challenges presented by data;
introduces the concept of evolving your organization’s data management practices based on
a maturity model.
Chapter 4: Data Ethics – Describes the principles underlying an ethical approach to data
management; explains how this approach to data handling can help prevent your
organization’s data from being used in ways that harm your customers, your reputation, or
the wider community.
The next four chapters review the mechanics of managing the data lifecycle:
Chapter 5: Data Governance – Explains the role of data governance in providing oversight
for data; highlights the ways an organization can implement governance practices to make
better operational and strategic decisions about data.
Chapter 6: Planning and Design in the Data Lifecycle – Describes the role of architecture
and data modelling in data management, and the importance of planning and design in
managing the overall lifecycle of data.
Chapter 7: Enabling and Maintaining Data – Provides an overview of activities related to
obtaining, integrating, and storing data, while also enabling its currency and access over
time. These activities include applying design concepts to create reliable, performant, and
secure warehouses, marts, and other data storage environments, where different types of
data can be integrated and made available for a wide range of uses.
Chapter 8: Using and Enhancing Data – Describes the ways that data can be used to create
new data to bring value to an organization. Data enhancement adds both value and
complexity to the data lifecycle. It requires organizations to plan for and cultivate the organic
growth of data.
The following three chapters cover the foundational activities required to help build trust in
data and ensure the organization can get value from its data over time:
Chapter 9: Data Protection, Privacy, Security and Risk Management – Describes how to
manage risks related to data, especially those connected with potential breaches or
malicious uses of data.
Chapter 10: Metadata Management – Provides an overview of how to manage Metadata,
that critical sub-set of data which contains the knowledge required to use and maintain the
rest of your data.
Chapter 11: Data Quality Management – Presents techniques for ensuring that your
organization’s data is fit for its intended purposes and enables your organization to meet its
strategic goals.
Each chapter concludes with assertions about what you need to know about these
topics. Chapter 12 What to do Now concludes the book with an approach to redirecting your
organization’s data management practices through a current state assessment, a defined
roadmap, and a commitment to organizational change management.
DAMA recognizes that —to most executives— data management can seem obscure,
complicated, and highly technical. You don’t have time to learn all the details or cut through
the hype. But if your organization depends on data – and most organizations do – then you
have a critical role to play in enabling success. Reliable data management takes
organizational commitment, and organizational commitment comes from leadership. DAMA
hopes that by navigating the labyrinth of data management, you can develop opportunities
for your organization to get more value from its data. This book will explain the fundamentals
and help you understand why they are important, so you can focus attention on how to build
trust in your organization’s data through efficient and effective practices.
