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Many companies start an enterprise data management program during one fiscal year only to abandon it the next. This is something we see very regularly, but there are ways to prevent it from happening at your company. It is possible for a data management professional to keep multiyear data projects on track and successful.
The "hierarchy of data needs" is one framework that can be used to guide multiyear data management programs. This simple framework, modeled after Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, helps organizations map and grow their data strategy and can be a useful decision-making tool to prevent enterprise data management program failures.
Data management programs are designed to improve the way critical data is created, maintained and applied to decision-making to meet business goals. The program is a holistic, multiyear, company-wide approach that includes the launch and coordination of individual projects. The actual projects might be as simple as a data definition standardization project or as complex as a multidomain master data management project.
Many enterprise data programs fail because initial projects do not meet the required benefits or expectations, company executives do not see the business value in the program when compared to its cost, or IT project implementations do not ultimately work.
Regardless of the fail points, choosing the initial data management projects that correctly align with the company's data needs is critical to the success of the entire enterprise program. Oftentimes, the company's data needs are not as grandiose as the stated needs of the designed projects. This is where the hierarchy of data needs can help.
The approach is based on the premise that organizations behave like individual humans when trying to achieve their goals. To help us understand how to apply this framework to the data environment, let's begin with what Maslow theorized.
Maslow's model explains human development through multiple stages of motivation, ultimately resulting in the final stage of "self-actualization." A rule of this premise is that humans must satisfy each need completely before moving to the next level. Maslow's five stages of human development are outlined with the needs of each stage:
Stage 1: Biological and...