My phone rings. It’s a call from a person I have never met. It’s a C-suite exec telling me his project team has major problems with their data. Judging from the sound of desperation in his voice, his reputation probably depends on the quick resolution of those problems. Many carefully-built careers have been scuttled by data disasters which often come as a surprise to the project team and their leadership. But decades of fielding frantic phone calls and subsequent project rescue experience has allowed me to compile this list of warning signs that your project might be destined to be doomed by data:

1. Your System Integrator says, “Data is a business problem.” It is common for the System Integrators to marginalize their responsibility for the data. And we all understand that the data is owned by the business. But without the cooperation and helpfulness of the System Integrator, your data will have a very rough journey, and this friction could slow down or even derail your entire project. After all, the only reason you are implementing your software is so that you can get data out of the new system. Therefore, it essential that the focus on the data should be paramount within the project. Data should not treated like a lowly stowaway to be unloaded roughly at the very end of the trip. Data is everyone’s problem.
   
2. You have planned only one test data load before Go Live. Data is fluid. It is the lifeblood of your business. It can also be messy, inconsistent and deceptively complex. It takes multiple load cycles and testing with that data to ensure your data can be loaded correctly, and that the data is behaving as expected in the new system and in all reports, interfaces and downstream systems. If you have poorly timed or insufficient “Mock Loads” in your project plan, you’re headed for a rocky landing.
   
3. You don’t share Data Readiness Metrics and data related issues as part of your regular status meetings. This is sailing blind without navigational aids. Even small issues not reported and addressed early can lead to major course corrections later. The best practice: Have a knowledgeable Data Lead involved from the start of the project to manage and reports on data related activities.
   
4. People are creating “fake” data for use in a formal testing cycle. Using pretend data to test system functionality is like announcing you are ready to sail around the world because you read a book on sailing. Your real data has variability and challenges you cannot even imagine at this point. The collection, filtration, cleansing, transformation and the actual loading of that data will be revealing, likely uncovering a host of issues -- some of which may lead to software configuration or design changes. System design changes in one area can impact other functionality within that system and potentially  downstream systems. Bottom line - the earlier you find these data challenges, the more time you have within your project schedule to adjust for them.
   
5. You don’t have a written Data Validation Strategy. Data Validation is a process for determining that your data is complete and correct – as determined by the Business. It is a distinct set of planned, auditable activities that should start before functional testing (Iteration Test Cycles and User Acceptance Testing) and should also be performed again prior to Go Live. There is nothing worse than sequestering your entire business team for days of testing – then to watch everyone sitting idly because the someone realized the data is not right and the planned test scripts cannot be performed. A well-constructed formal Data Validation Plan is the “secret sauce” that engages the business in a methodical way to spot those unexpected data issues so the project team can take the appropriate action before it’s too late.
   

 
I wish you and your project team a safe journey. But be on the lookout for these warning signs, and if you see any, make course corrections quickly.

It was a sweltering summer day. I had big plans for riding my horse with friends which involved loading my young horse, Smoke, into a horse trailer for the first time and then driving two hours north to the mountains. I knew that once we arrived at our cool and shady destination, my horse would be quite happy. But Smoke was unconvinced of my plan – he just would not go into that dark trailer. And because he weighed 1200 pounds, I personally could not make him go into the trailer unless he wanted to go – or at least not without somebody getting hurt.

In my mind, this scenario is a lot like getting a procurement group to go along with a new Supply Chain Data Governance implementation. You know that if they cooperate, invest weeks of their time in meetings, training, helping to set up the new process and do master data cleansing, then the procurement department will run more economically and efficiently in the long run. But most teams won’t go forth willingly with a plan unless they absolutely want to. And if you try force them -- well, someone’s career is bound to get damaged in the process.

So, what’s the trick to getting horses and people to do new things?  You should plan on taking small steps forward and letting them have some control over the process. I have witnessed this effective implementation style in my tenure as a board member and consultant with ECCMA.org, a not-for-profit association dedicated to improving Data Quality through implementing international standards.
What ECCMA has understood from the beginning is that Data Cataloging and Supply Chain Governance is a collaborative effort that takes place over a period of time. It is not merely a software installation with training, but rather a continuous improvement process.  ECCMA believes that the business should progress forward in a series of small conquests and ROI victories that make sense from the business’ perspective – not necessarily at the behest of IT applying pressure to fully complete an implementation by a certain arbitrarily imposed date.

ECCMA’s eMDV (Master Data Validator) is a powerful, yet easy to use tool that ties together in one interface the materials, suppliers, and inventory from across a company’s often rugged sprawling landscape of disparate ERP systems. The eMDV is built around ISO 8000 standards and enables the generation of ISO 22745 compliant descriptions of materials and services. These detailed standardize descriptions help the business understand exactly what they are buying and stocking. ECCMA understands that if you don’t have a systematic process for describing materials and identifying suppliers, you simply cannot have confidence that you are buying at the best prices, and you also cannot know if you are carrying too much or too little of those products in your stockrooms.

Here’s the simple truth - most manufacturers and suppliers really don’t want you to be able to compare their products and pricing with others. They play a game of making their products seem so different and valuable that you cannot easily compare them. Ever try to do comparison shopping for mattresses or car tires? Figuring out what is an equivalent or comparable alternative product simply by reading the manufacturers’ literature is virtually impossible! So, unless you have a good systematic process such as the eMDV for easily describing and comparing materials, you are likely buying similar product from different places at widely varying prices. You are not able to optimize your inventory or MRO spending.
The eMDV has a solid process for describing and identifying and materials which fits easily into the day-to-day activities of the procurement activities of the business. By focusing first on what areas of savings make the most sense to the business, they are then incentivized to search for, cleanse and rationalize those materials which results in the most immediate economic benefit to a particular area of the business. Since the eMDV is so easy to implement and use, small gains can be realized quickly, and those ROIs become the positive rewards that give the incentive (and budgetary approvals) to lasso more improvement efforts.  Some of these ROI wins may include:

• Corralling spend for a particular product or group of products into to one high volume contract
• Easily communicating what is the preferred supplier/materials to curtail maverick spending
• Reducing cash outlays by identifying and transferring slow moving or “dead stock” from one warehouse to another plant /warehouse that desperately needs those materials. 

In the end, it took two hours to convince my horse it was his idea to get into the trailer. But from that day forward, I needed only to walk him up to the ramp of the trailer and he would happily march right on in.
So instead of forcing an entire enterprise into an uncomfortable place with a large upfront investment at risk, encourage the business to take small steps paved with good predictable ROI’s on their journey. Once the business has experienced success (without the brow-beating and pressure of the typical IT all-or-nothing implementation model) the business will move forward as a willing partner, eager to find new opportunities to save money on procurement spending and inventory carrying cost.
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Contact ECCMA today for more information and a free demo of the ECCMA eMDV.