Data Governance Matters

In Data We Trust

Guest poster Tom Jesionowski, Prime Data Consulting LLC

These days you cannot open a news portal, magazine, or turn around without hearing about the markets and the crisis in confidence in our markets. I can’t help but wonder what went on behind the scenes and ask what role poor data governance played? Mortgages being bought and sold three, four, or five times, and the data associated with them being merged over and over. Each time details getting dropped or obscured by undocumented ETL and data movement processes.

At the end of the information chain, the data was merged and aggregated forming the foundation for the derivatives sold and resold in the market. At the end of the day (and the boom) ultimately it was in data that we trusted. Data that was so far removed from the real assets that it became nearly impossible to fully evaluate the risk of what was held in the portfolios. The true magnitude of the risk was hidden behind poor data governance.  If the current crisis in confidence doesn’t make the case for data governance then what will it take?