How to map your current data and processes?

Posted on 28-okt-2020 12:06:47

Now that your data strategy is written down and supported by the leadership team and stakeholders, it's time for the next step in becoming a data-driven company: mapping your current data and processes. Continue reading to learn how to handle this best.

Break down the data silos.

Over time, all employees within your company have been collecting data through providing services. This data is stored in spreadsheets, BI tools, dashboards, databases, CRM, ERP, and many more. And because this data has been collected by separate teams or employees, every tool will have its taxonomy, duplicates and outdated data. 

So, before you can decide upon what steps are necessary to set up your data-driven processes, you first need to get a good understanding of the data that is available within your company.

 

Data Silos

Build your data catalogue in 5 steps.

Data - Context - Knowledge  

To get a good overview you'll need to:

Step 1: Set up meetings with every team within the company, as well as your external partners.

Step 2: Make a list of the data they collect, what this data means within their team, where it is stored and why it is collected. 

Step 3: Map out all these data sources and processes per team.

Step 4: Write down the semantic meaning of the data labels used.

Step 5: Input all this information in a data governance or data mapping software.

Need something to help you with keeping oversight of company-wide data and assets? Try our platform with its innovative graph view to map out your data sources and add metadata & documentation to the data sources & flows!

Why is it important to map these?

Once you've gone through this time-consuming steps of mapping all data and processes, you have a better view of what data is still missing, what is relevant for the company's’ targets, and how to best link all these data sources to make it accessible and useful for everyone within the company.

Without these steps, it's impossible to succeed in your transformation toward a data-driven company. In my next blog post, I'll explain how you should define what data and processes you'll need to meet your targets. So keep an eye out!

 

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Looking for professional guidance? Book a TENGU.101 workshop, and we’ll tackle your data and goals together!

Topics: Big Data, DataOps, Data Enablement, Data Management, Data Governance, Digital tranformation

Daphné De Troch

Written by Daphné De Troch

CMO & Co-founder at tengu.io | Founder of the DataOps Ghent (DOG) community | Reach out to discuss open sources, DataOps and marketing related topics.

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