Data Quality: A Cause and Effect Story

While reading a classic story to my kids, "Because a bug went ka-choo!" I thought to myself that some CEO's who just don't get data quality might learn a little cause and effect along the same lines as this great story. So here's a lesson about the importance of bugs in your code and the data quality issues it may cause and the effects that pour forth...enjoy!

You may not believe it,
But here’s how it happened.
One long business day,
A little bug was scripted.

And because of that script,
A character was dropped.
Because that character dropped
A record got lost.
Because the record was lost,
Provisioning was not informed.
Because they weren’t informed
No service was issued.
Because of no service,
that customer got mad
because he got mad.
He talked to his neighbour,
Because he talked to his neighbour,

the neighbour named Paul chatted to his coworker.

Because of that chat, the coworker made an anti-company website,
Because of that website people shared similar bad service stories.
Because of those stories, the competition smiled.
Because the competition smiled, they decided to entice.
Because they were enticed,
The customers started to leave.
Because they started to leave, sales came down, and it hit CEO Brown.

And that drop got stuck in his head. Because it got stuck, CEO Brown phoned for help.
Because of his call, the CFO began counting.
Because the CFO was counting, they noticed the shares.
And so the execs sold those shares all alone.
Because they sold those shares, the share price came down.

Because it came down, employees were let go.
Because they were let go, they decided to sue.
Because of that suit the shares price started to sink,
Because it started to sink the executives were investigated for insider trading.

Because they were investigated, they headed to court,
And you may not believe it, it’s true I’m afraid they ran right into executive protest parade.

And that started something they’ll never forget, and as far as I know it is going on yet.
And that’s how it happened, believe me it’s true, because, just because a little bug got scripted.