What data are used within the organisation? What do they actually mean, how are they connected and in which business processes are they important? Fundamental questions when it comes to data, which many organisations cannot answer with confidence, however. In 2021, it is therefore time to really tackle data management!
More and more organisations recognise the importance of mapping out and sorting out all the different data that is processed. Data management is becoming an important spearhead and the reason for many new departments and projects. Great ambitions are being expressed to set up data warehouses and data lakes and to link these to business glossaries and data quality systems and business rule engines.
This requires a great deal of technical expertise and a good grasp of how to manage and make large projects manageable. But an even more fundamental precondition for making a data management project successful is the answer to the question: What data is used in the organisation? What exactly does this data mean, how is it interrelated and in which business processes is it important?
A perfect means to arrive at the answers to these questions and to record the answers in a clear and usable manner is the creation of formal models. Examples are data models, process models and control models. A well-developed model makes the structure of large amounts of information clear. It makes it unambiguously clear what belongs where. And a model ensures that we can communicate very specifically, with the least possible risk of misunderstandings.
It is sometimes thought that the use of models is a technical affair. We challenge anyone who has this view to take a broader look at the use of models! It is precisely the use of central models, to which everyone can contribute from their own expertise, that creates a clear shared picture. Drawing up a model is the perfect opportunity to arrive at a shared picture of the data that make it possible for the organisation to do its work, across the various departments.
The advantage of models drawn up and supported jointly by the organisation is that they form a concrete product that serves as a foundation for other products and services. Do we want the new data warehouse to meet our needs? Base it on our logical model. Which concepts are most important to define first in a business glossary? Let's use the attributes from our logical model that are used in the process models of our most important business processes. And so on.
How can you work with different knowledge holders of different expertise on one model, in a way that is consistent and repeatable in many projects? We at PNA know a thing or two about that. We have been successfully working on the answer to this question since 1989. And we are more than happy to share our knowledge!
The CogNIAM core workshop provides a half-day overview of the core of our method: the structured and understandable translation of information from documents and the knowledge and experience of colleagues into a model, determining the right type of model for the right type of knowledge and making connections between different types of models. After this workshop, you will be able to apply the principles of our method to the way your organisation works. If necessary, you can then follow a more in-depth workshop, or make a flying start via coaching-on-the-job under the supervision of our trainers and consultants.