What your data tells you about your processes

Ralph de Graaf — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:41:58 +0000

Do you know exactly what the data processes in your company look like? Many people have a general overview of the processes. Others have a detailed view of some of these processes. Few people know all data processes in detail.

HI Survey Results

Looking at the data can give you deeper insight in your data processes. Not only the processes in theory, but in practice too. How? By focusing on the exceptions!

For example, do you think the field ‘social security number’ is reliable because it is mandatory and uses a modulo 11 check digit? Maybe this field is filled with a fake-value like ‘111222333′ , or the social security number of the agent who entered the data. A frequency check on the values in this field will identify values that occur more frequently than others.

Why do people do that, cheat? One reason may be that staff at the front desk want to help their customer, or sell something, and the customer doesn’t know their social security number at that moment.

The same applies to all other fields. Address fields mandatory, but the customer doesn’t want to give their address ? Fill in the address of the office. Customer deceased? Put the text (deceased) after their surname. Ex-directory phone number? Use the email field for entering the text ‘ex-directory’.

Get to know your processes by analyzing your data!

Data Value Talk » datakwaliteit

What your data tells you about your processes