A gold DQ team!

With the Olympic Games come and gone, and the NHL hockey season fast approaching the playoffs I can not help but take a moment, although brief, to state that a golden data quality team should resemble a golden hockey team.

Now I’m not going to say who‘s perfect in hockey, I’m not here to wave flags. It’s the skills that count. In data quality you want people who have all these skills:

The offense:
-- Put the pressure on the other team (the delivery team, the source team) to get what they want – a winning situation. They proactively look for the bad data, and get rid of it and create plans for cleaning the data or preventing the situation from arising again.

--You need people with technical skills, people who can read and analyse data models with ease.

-- The offense will come back and support the defense to help them get that bad data out, based on their knowledge and skills.

-- They have the ability to set the stage for an opportunity for improvement.

The defense:
-- The defenders on a data quality team, see the big picture.
-- They know what’s coming down the pipe before the others do.
-- They drive bad data to the corners to prevent it from getting in.

-- They keep the bad data out by supporting the offense.

The netminder:
-- If the defenders see the big picture, the netminder sees the wall it’s hanging on.
-- The netminder’s job is solely to ensure bad data does not get in. If it does, then you will be basing some bad decisions based on their mistakes.

-- Has quick reflexes, and understands exactly how to prevent the situation from occurring.

Each and every member on your team will work together to support each other, they will have skills from each category. As a team of data quality analysts, they must ensure they keep your reports, databases clean so your decision makers can make sound quality choices for your organization. Now that's golden.