The cyclic nature of data management

     One perspective I have from a long career is that the popularity of data management is cyclic - sometimes you’ll be working in a large team of data managers and other times you’re in a room by yourself.

These days we seem to be in that part of the cycle where we are losing people and not getting them replaced.   The reason for this is may be that management think that “things are going ok at the moment”; “we don’t have any real data problems”; and “boy, those application development teams are behind their schedule and they are complaining that they need more programmers”.

As a result, management attention and resources are probably being directed to the application development teams.

Practically, there’s not much you can do to combat this.

Cynically, the only way to get the cycle to turn upwards in your favour is to be opportunistic and wait for the inevitable data disaster.   Even then, this might not actually be apparent to senior management, so you have to be prepared to point out the disaster or the potential disaster.

It’s been my experience that trying to sell the benefits of improved data management falls on deaf ears.  It’s far more effective to scare management by showing them a data management cliff they are about to fall off (and the impact to their personal reputation or that of the organisation).   More on this later.

For now, consider where you are in the data management cycle and if you are being pushed up or down.  How often does the CIO talk to you about the corporate data?