Key Ingredients to an Enterprise Information Management Solution

EIM Gumbo

1 portion of Data Governance

1 portion of Data Warehousing

A stock of interoperability*

Culture, chopped up finely

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Dash of patience

*Measured and added to the extent as needed. Can be made up of a variety of means, manner and mechanisms to facility the move of data to the warehouse and information from there out to the plate in preparation for consumption

Preparation:

1. Make a roux with Data Governance – let it cook for a good long while, it can’t be rushed and takes time.
2. As the Data Governance is simmering, you can begin dicing up the Data Warehousing.
3. Once the Data Governance roux is ready, mix in the Data Warehousing. Give the Data Warehousing a little time to get set up and going.
4. Slowly begin to pour in the stock of interoperability, stirring to mix as you do.
5. Throw in a dash of patience, adjusting to taste as the gumbo simmers.
6. Let cook for 36 – 60 months, with a low initial temperature, gradually increased over time.
7. You can begin tasting and sampling after 12 months.
8. Prior to serving, add the Culture, giving it enough time to cook, add more over time as is needed.
9. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to get creative once everything is well under way.

Serving Suggestions:

Instead of deciding which plates, spoons and forks to use for consuming the gumbo, this is the exciting process of selecting which tools to use for the consumption. The ones to use will be based upon the number and type of guests, prevailing technology standards and the current capability to serve up the required information as input. Business operations typically prefer basic reporting and analytics, whereas informatics will have a more complex taste, looking for statistical analysis and data mining. Everyone’s preference can be met; the more complex pieces just may take longer given the information need, the organization’s maturity and capability around consuming the information and, most importantly, ability to act upon the results.

Thoughts:

I know this is a little tongue in cheek, no pun intended, but meant to illustrate a view on how to approach an EIM. At first, particularly if you have tried in the past to roll out an EIM or part of one and didn’t succeed, the effort can seem daunting. To be successful, you need to have a plan your recipe, take the time to understand and envision what it will look like at the various stages, be deliberate in your actions and get buy-in through involvement and ownership. An underlying implication in the recipe and the last statement deals with two important aspects of the effort. You need to take the effort a step at a time. This enables you to involve who you need on a scale that doesn’t mean the whole organization. The who refers to a team of technology and business folks, integrated and working together. This type of effort cannot be done if it’s only one function in the organization carrying the proverbial cross.

Lastly, there may be the temptation to cut corners and buy something canned. I admit, that path can look attractive, particularly if there have been past challenges. Don’t fall prey to that, though. For the EIM to become part of the organizations culture of execution and service excellence, you need to cook the EIM dish from scratch. Part of moving up the EIM maturity cycle is going through the iterative process of learning from mistakes, benefiting from the successes and delivering value at an incremental pace, even if the initial deliveries are basic. Remember, it’s your business, your people know it; they know the data, information, products, services, customer and each other the best.