Assets in the contexts that you outline are definitely a challenge. You are quite right, having a consistent view of asset does present many challenges with different facets contained in disparate legacy systems.

Another major challenge with such assets is the fundamental problem of establishing what the true Unique Identifier is.

I will definitely ensure that one (or more) of the courses covers this critical area.

Regards
John

Your suggestions are very helpful and I will incorporate them into the webinar and course structures.

Regards
John

For many asset intensive organisations (property, transport, utilities etc.) obtaining a consistent view of the ‘Asset’ across all systems and processes is a large master data challenge.

I’m not sure where you ultimately intend the series of webinars to end up, but including physical assets as one of the ‘products’ or having specific content related to such assets would increase your audience significantly.

Julian

Thanks for the comment. Here are two definitions that should answer your question on Function vs Process.

A Business Function – also called a Function – is an activity or set of activities that a business must perform in order to meet its business objectives and continue in existence.
It is the Business Functions that create, transform and use all data in an enterprise.

A Business Process – also called a Process – describes the order of execution of Business Functions in response to a specific Trigger in order to achieve a Preferred or Non-preferred outcome.

ETL processes/functions are not Business Processes or Business Functions. They are system functions (with a small ‘f’) or utilities, which are simply mechanisms for moving data around between systems. They neither create nor transform data – they might change its structure but not its value or the information that it conveys.

I hope that this helps.

Regards
John

Since MDM activities are supposed to be assigned to the enterprise level (not department level), potential attendees and future “Master Data Managers” need to have the view on Internal and External Products. Therefore, I would include all categories in a single course. (I may not agree with all of the above subcategories, but agree with the range that you intend to cover.)

Instead of the levels Introduction, Intermediate and Advanced, I’d rather see a “general” course that should match with (i.e. contain entities and descriptors applicable to) the majority of business branches. In addition, I would offer more business-branch-specific (in-house?) courses.

Courses should include exercises / practice work. I would only offer accreditations (other than “attended the class”) if the course is part of an officially recognized education program.

I am currently developing strategic and adminsitrative processes for a client. Both of these require attention to variations or multiple scenarios. I am currently designing the data model for these processes. The key in developing for me is to understand the data from the “outside in”. That is understand the outcomes from the process in a data requirements, define the sources (inputs) into the processes and the associated rules. This seems to allow me to define the activities and develop what the process needs to derive or apply in data to achieve the outcome. Once this is clarified I am more clear on sources and definition of the data model and can communicate what I need to the IT database developer. It also seems to allow me to do something you stressed in the beginning, clear out the current data model inaccuracies particularly in source of truth versus repository of truth definitions.

Your discussion is exciting and I expect it will assist me in developing even better tools to communicate with IT on the datamodel requirements. Thanks for starting this.

One of the most difficult things for enterprises to do is the truly know what their ‘Product’ is. They think they do, until you ask them, “Which is your most profitable product?”

They then realise that ‘Product’ is quite different from what they supposed. It is usually some physical element, packaged in a particular way, under a particular brand and, often, with some service element or guarantee included.

The products of mobile telecoms companies are a point in question.

Regards
John

Thanks for the thoughtful reply to the previous post and for sharing these models. There is such subtlety to data modeling and traps we as modelers fall into without realizing it that cause problems. I had never before considered roles could be derivable, nor had I considered that “conceptual” data model could be an oxymoron. I know I had struggled greatly with defining what a “conceptual” model is and you have helped explain why!

-Todd