Maybe you are coming to our MDM Summit in London, February 8-9.  Perhaps you can share with me your war stories related to MDM, and how you got round them.  I certainly could do with the help .

I was reading the WSJ this weekend and I spotted a very interesting book review: The New American Divide, WSJ Print Edition January 27 2011

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html

This extract or book review, from the upcoming “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” by Charles Murray (of “The Bell Curve” fame) won’t sit well with many readers.  The review explores primarily the cultural divide that has separated what was a newly emerging middle class in the 1960’s and looks how the economic and social differences between the now forming slightly-more-upper-class and the now-more-lower-class.  The middle class apparently, nudged along by social policy of the 1960’s, basically went separate ways.  The data Murray shares seems to show that there are indeed two different cultural groups that came from a common pool that was “us”.  The cultural gap that Murray explains is what others would call “income inequality”.  Such inequality is the playground of the politicians, and in today’s economic climate, this is very topical.  Murray suggests however that such inequality is as a result of a deeper, more culturally driven divide that remains in place today.  His answer to the reduce the gap, and to impact or slow the growing economic gap enjoyed by both groups, is for those that “have” to sell the merits to those that “don’t” and to encourage those that “don’t” to behave more like themselves.  This won’t go down well since it will be derided by many as politically incorrect.  My experience in the UK, during the 70’s and 80’s, epitomized by the schism with which Thatcherism is perceived, suggest Murray has some good points.  The “progress” we adored in the 60’s did create unintended consequences – and many of our politicians, because they are politicians, won’t accept that.

This is a comment from an article I read over the Christmas break: True Conservatives are writhing in their graves, Letters, Financial Times, US Print Edition, December 15^th 2011

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=true+conservatives+are+writhing+in+their+graves&fr=aaplw&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=true+conservatives+are+writhing+in+their+graves&d=4786238963519893&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=ee1991a1,72c9e8b6&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=el2dFkwUq5syiRnTUAoJtA–#axzz1k6a0i2zS

I have to disagree with John Szemerey.  His letter to the FT was in response to UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s avoidance of signing up to the emergency agreement just before Christmas to save the Euro.  I happened to agree with the Prime Minister’s decision, though it was not the ideal result the UK has a chance to preserve its own economy while many Europeans attach their lifebelts to a leaderless, rudderless Titanic.  That being said, I think Szemerey misunderstands what Conservatism means.  He says, “Churchill, Macmillan, and Heath – must be writhing in their graves at the betrayal of the ideals for which they fought during their political lifetimes.”  He concludes, “The euro crisis would not have occurred if Britain had been a member of the euro group of countries”.  That last point wound up my clock since it is clearly preposterous.  The crisis did not occur in isolation to what happened in the US.  The euro crisis was always “hiding” since its primary cause is an imbalance in trade between the richer, producer countries and the southern consumer countries.  See Europe’s crisis is all about the north-south split, Alan Greenspan, Financial Times, US Print Edition, October 7 2011.  The gap in trade balance was always going to cause a crisis and it took the US housing bubble to trigger – but if the US had not crashed, the euro crisis would have happened later.  I don’t really know one Brit who opening talks about giving up political and economic sovereignty to a bunch of Europeans, in the way the French desire it (which, by the way, have their own reasons to counterweight their German neighbor).  Britain needs a truly open market and that is what should be protected in Europe.  Political unification is not going to happen soon, not least because France and Germany have differing views on what this means anyway, and that is another reason why the euro crisis was just waiting to happen.  So I don’t think Churchill would be writhing; he will mostly likely be sound asleep with a wry smile on his face.  As to Heath, I don’t really remember him but what I do remember I don’t like.  I matured, politically, when Thatcher sacked a tired, old Conservative party that needed reviving.

And here is a book review, also from the Christmas break:  Parker Payne Investigates, Agatha Christie, GGP Media.  I read the collection many years ago and had forgotten how good they were.  I happened to find this fine hardback edition and decided to reacquaint myself with Christie’s fine work.  I again remembered, all too soon, that the collection is too short.  If only there were more sorry souls for Parker Payne to help make happy!  I am not sure I could ever force myself to visit him though.  He was all too quick to correctly disarm his clients.  His travels were from a bye gone age when everything was a little more prim and proper, and I wish I had been there.  For a rainy day, or a long train or plane ride.  8 out of 10.

The year has started off with a bang.  Overall my 2011 was very similar to 2010 – very, very busy.  Inquiry load for MDM was much higher in 2011 though with our new hire in the MDM team, we were able to accommodate the increase without killing ourselves.  Travel is starting up this year with a blast – and it seems Master Data Management demand will only increase again.  I will be speaking about MDM and meeting with end users at BI summits (UK, Australia), BPM summits (UK, US), and that is along with our MDM summits (UK and US).  And we haven’t finished planning for the year yet, either.

I read lots of news papers and magazines, when I was not playing with the kids, or eating too much.  The Economist’s The World in 2012 had a story covering the mother of all MDM of Customer Data implementations.  In “India’s Identity Revolution” we hear how India is building out a platform to support real time identify management for all its citizens.  The focus is on sourcing social and other government services, and given the size of India’s population, this will be a very, very large implementation.  Maybe they could do with some help with MDM?

I will post a few other stories, the one’s I found most interesting, in the next few days.  But perhaps we can meet up at our upcoming MDM Summit in London.  I will be there all week (the BI summit is there earlier in the week).  The MDM Summit’s theme is “optimizing business outcomes with trusted master data” which seems very “in tune” with the current mixed economic situation.  MDM continues to amaze me.  Despite the complex political and fraught economic conditions, the market is going to continue to grow.  We put out a press release talking about the event that stated that “Worldwide master data management (MDM) software revenue will reach $1.9 billion in 2012, a 21 per cent increase from 2011”.  I will share our latest thinking on information governance, MDM of product data, and will share the key note with my colleague, John Radcliffe, to talk about MDM and cloud, social data and why “big data” isn’t big enough.

I was not able to attend this event in 2011 so I am looking forward to attending, and meeting those of you that can attend!

Opening key note was heavy on business content, and low on technology (good stuff).  So much so, I had to wonder what tools were being used in each customer story. But toward the end Arvind Krishna came to the rescue and included all the main product updates.

The Information management key note was a bit of a let down though.  Arvind carried on where he left off.  His opening slide was all about how much faster and bigger big blue’s boxes were than the other guys.  IMS 12?  The nearest we got to a business case was “cut IT costs”.  The real business drivers that counted couldn’t be kept down though.  The middle section was about information governance, and there was a smattering of interesting business stories to help.  I wish IBM would start with the real business drivers, and then back their way into hard core technology.  It would look so much better.

Customer presentations were very good.  Sat in a session where two users (Cardinal Health and Nationwide) both spoke to their “information governance” programs.  Nationwide explained their line of business driven, MDM oriented, customer view program that has grown in to a broader information governance program.  Cardinal talked about their top down/IT led, business glossary based, finance driven program that is now backing into to operational information governance.  Two different starting points, slowly converging on “information governance”.  Very good stories – dripping business drivers and real, meaningful learings.  Not a DB2 anywhere to be heard.

Then a penny dropped.  The session ended with an IBM’er talking about their information governance framework.  My jaw dropped.  I have said before that I do not think that “information governance” really exists.  It is a misnomer since there is no context.  You say, “Master Data Management” and I know what you mean (most of the time).  You say “information governance” and I have to ask you for more information – what is the business case, the scenario, what are you trying to govern and why?  IBM should NEVER present on their “information governance framework” WITHOUT first starting off by talking about business drivers.  IBM should always start off with a business scenario.  It makes “governance” meaningful.

News on the new release of InfoSphere MDM release 10, due November 4^th.  New packaging and increased focus on integration across the previously separate MDM products, and other offerings.  Looks like a simpler message, for once.  Should be better understood by users.  Maybe I will get fewer questions about product positioning.  I hope so.

Collectively I see a lot of folks coming to terms with defining, and re-defining, the role of “data governor”, “data steward”, and “data maintenance”.  I think this is a critical delineation of duties, yet so many organizations start with an “all in” definition and then struggle when it comes to execution.  I don’t think MDM, and any related information governance effort, can work unless these roles are clearly identified and resourced (sometimes by separate people).  I don’t mean to suggest that organizations need to build up their bureaucracy; it could be that these roles are staffed by one or two folks.  The point is that these roles exist today in every organization, but mostly informally and inconsistently.  These roles need to be explicit and the dependency of the roles needs to be made clear; I know what I am supposed to do in my home every evening; why not in our day to day work?

I spent another day this week with several other clients I was reminded, as I flew home, of two press pieces.  Jim Ericson over at Information Management, wrote a nice piece: MDM: No Roots, No Fruits.  The part of the article that resonated with this week’s most recent client interactions was this: “…[I]t’s easy to forget that most companies – by far — are only kicking the tires on MDM.”  This is just so true.  And this tells you just how far we have come with “data governance” – not very far.

This does not mean that there aren’t examples of other data that might be governed for specific purposes (think records management, digital media), but widely adopted, enterprise wide, primary information assets, broad based data governance does not exist.  And despite this many organizations are still “successful” in that they still ship the goods, still tax the citizen, or still power the washing machine.  Talk about a tough message to sell.

In support of Jim’s point I noted a survey Kalido published recently.  In The State of Data Governance 2011” they reported, among other things, “Despite nearly seven years extolling the virtues of managing master data by analysts and vendors, 49% of companies still do not manage master data anywhere but in their disparate applications.”  Well I have to disagree!  I think a figure of 49% is very flattering.  I think the vast majority of organizations that could take advantage of information governance programs like MDM are “not there yet”.  I would estimate nearer 80% of companies are not managing their master data properly.  A figure nearer 80% seems to jive better with the level of inquiries we saw a few years ago, the much higher level we see now, and the type of organizations we talk with.

On a more positive note Heiler also published a survey of organizations using MDM solutions to help master product data.  The survey is called “Return on Investment (ROI) of Product Information for Multichannel” and by definition, this is a segment of the overall MDM market.  The good news is that the survey showed some interesting data supporting the business case for how an MDM approach helps organizations achieve their business goals more so then without MDM.

“Conversion rates”, that is, the rate at which a prospect turns into a customer transaction, was reportedly higher for organizations adopting MDM of Product Data.  But oddly only manufacturers surveyed suggested this; retailers suggested a much small impact of governed data on conversion rates.  Then again, the maturity of MDM in retailers lags that of manufactures by quite a large margin (I surmise) so I wonder if the respondents really answered the question that was asked of them.  I would have to explore the responses (and organizations) more fully to get to the bottom of the difference.

Either way both survey’s expose some good information, and provide more food for thought.  I am still really excited at the amount of work going on, but there is so much more ahead of us than there is behind – for most of us.

I spent a few minutes comparing and contrasting MDM to BI and CRM and other business applications, programs, and disciplines.  We explored the purpose of MDM, and how it would provide a foundation for all manner of applications that consume data.  Toward the end of my “pitch” I mentioned how adopting MDM will likely lead to discovery of how business rules in the source applications will eventually be questioned, and that they may need to be “controlled” by the MDM program.  As I paused for oxygen, the client jumped in:

“Hang on, I don’t want to do all that stuff.  I think the solution is only a little, simple database in the center of the IT systems that maintains “single version of the truth”, that every user and system can interrogate for any purpose, that publishes out, as needed, good, clean data”.

OK, this is where my mind ran ahead of the words coming out of my mouth.  This sounds like a logical request, but how on earth would this work?  Surely, if this solution were this simple, why did MDM come about?  Could a full blown MDM implementation be serviced by “just” an uber table that stored links and maps between the erroneous data in the source systems and all new resulting systems, including the new CRM and BI tools, yet to be deployed in 2012 and 2013?  Of course, the answer is “technically yes, this could be done, but that is not the point”.  The reason why we are all in the pickle (of inconsistent data across heterogeneous landscape) is because of the number of one-off, “little projects” that were designed to solve this problem that became, themselves, silos that did not replace anything, any role, or any service.  Technology, my dear client, is the least important thing here.  Governance IS needed – there is no way around it.  But how could I bring us back to reality?

We back tracked – and talked about governance, stewardship, roles, responsibility, data ownership, process integrity, business outcomes, and so on.  As we talked more, I could hear the clients wooden/noisy chair gradually lean back on its springs, and could imagine the client coming out in a cold sweat.  I ruined her day.  She did not want to hear a Gartner analysts tell her that this was going to be hard work.  She wanted a simple IT answer to a business problem, make her decision simple.  I felt the wind leave her sails, my customer service score falling, as she put the hand set back on the phone cradle.

I hate calls like this.  On a few, rare occasions, the client spots the mismatch in expectations and they are re-set, and success is sought.  For too many, the short cut is the easy way out – and I get the call 2 years later after the initial “pickle’ as gone very rotten.  And there maybe even less money (and energy) left to tackle the real issue.

The authors, Malcolm Chisholm and Fabio Corzo, did a great job explaining the real point of MDM.  I was reminded of a comment I posted on a colleagues presentation in preparation for a presentation at Symposium in October.  We do not seek to govern information where the purpose is to manage information.  The whole point is that something of value to the business is yielded.  We don’t really want to harp on about commitment to managing information (we know we need too; we know we are bad at it); but we need to focus on how such efforts generate business value, and to expose that, we will likely have to consider and execute changes in how the business behaves.  QED though we talk about MDM, the focus is more about business process and business, and less about IT and data.

One comment made in the article caught my eye:

It is doubtful that MDM has ever actually managed to change and reconfigure the lifecycle of master concepts created and controlled within the enterprise, let alone external concepts and actors (e.g., suppliers).

Given my recent post where I talked about spending 3 days on the road with users, and how excited I was at the extraneous efforts organizations are putting into change these master concepts/processes, I DO think that we all have a chance right now with MDM.  MDM is only 6 years old (as a discrete discipline) – and we are all still learning what MDM means.  I don’t know any other discipline or topic like MDM – but I have said before, I can see me focus shifting, in future years, to “information governance”.  MDM is really breaking barriers down, and it is helping establish real information governance in places where it never existed.  This is exciting stuff.  I don’t know what MDM will look like in 5 years time, but I know it will not go away.

And before you shoot me, I admit that MDM is not – really- new.  It is just a formalization of what we know we needed to have done all along; and some organizations do something very similar to MDM today (or some time ago) even if they don’t/didn’t call it that.  Notwithstanding this, MDM is new, is exciting, and is making GREAT progress.

To complete the paragraph I copied the comment:

In fact, when an MDM program deals with external concepts or actors, it commonly captures small portions of their states that are then tracked in isolation through specific, internal company processes or lifecycles. Hence, MDM typically influences a corporation to be tidier with how they store siloed point views of master concepts and actors. This is something Len Seligman of MITRE calls “silos of excellence.”

I have to admit that this is a very real risk and characterizes who most information management programs have gone over the last 20 odd years.  In fact, at a higher level, when Gartner refers to Enterprise Information Management, we would suggest that MOST organizations are NOT doing EIM; they are doing parts of EIM well, and some parts poorly, thus EIM itself is not really established.  And this despite the billions of dollars spent on systems and technologies and data bases and data warehouses and ETL and tools and so on.  Many companies “do” information management, but they don’t achieve EIM.  Likewise, MDM COULD develop, like many other previous efforts like it (are there any like MDM as described?) but my gut feel today is that this is not the case.  Perhaps his is somewhat based in hope, but the data does suggest progress is being made.

We shall all have to monitor how this story evolves…

I should also mention that John Radcliffe, our other partner-in-crime in MDM land, also published some new material on a related vectors – that of usage-case.  In fact John figured out a neat way to relate two specific operational use-cases, he calls them usage-patterns.  In both cases, “transactional” and “workflow” (or collaborative) are in fact two specific types of operational MDM usage patterns.  John nicely describes them (Different Approaches or Usage Patterns for MDM and Their Implications) and highlights the differences, and similarities, between them, and talks about where they are most appropriate.  The narrower master data model is what gives you the chance to get information governance stood up (small is easier to get started) and the broader metadata model helps track more complex and later requirements.  Both are in fact required to be successful, long term, with enterprise wide information governance.  John is wrapping up work now on our annual update to the Hype Cycle for MDM.

Michael Blechar, a regular speaker at our annual MDM Summits, also updated and refreshed a bunch of research on a closely related topic, and one that is proving to provide a rich seam along which to provide additional value to users – that of metadata management and MDM.  One of them, “Metadata Management is Critical to MDM’s Long-Term Success”, highlights an idea I have blogged on previously- that of aligning a minimalist master data model with a maximalist metadata model.

Lastly, I too recently published a tome: Scoping an Effective MDM Governance Framework.  I am hoping the title describes the note.  My next piece focused on the implementation styles of MDM and later, the newly emerging data stewardship applications beginning to emerge.

Enjoy.

This was one of those flight where:

• Several folks around me kept falling asleep without one of those nice neck cushions, so their heads nod slowly, then finally fall forward, which wakes them up again.  This goes on for the whole trip – and we have all been there.  It’s not fun for the nodder.
• The guy two rows up was snoring heavily which is so annoying (until you put on your noise cancelling headphones)
• Most other folks were really quiet, not even reading
• The late setting sun was falling quickly yet spreading its orange and then red, and then purple rays through the many half closed window shades
• It was a smooth ride, no bumps, that was very comfortable

I was sitting there, in the middle seat (no upgrade), but with control of the two arm rests.  My noise cancelling headphones were on, and I had music quietly sifting through my mind.  But I was not listening.  My eyes wandered around the cabin, watching the nodding near-sleepers and other folks half-dozing, taking in the almost surreal experience. It was a most enjoyable, physically restful ride- but my mind was running at a thousand miles an hour.  As the cabin grew ever darker and the setting sun beams reddened to mauve and then near darkness, I just drifted from one thought to the next.

I had just met a lot of user organizations, across many industries, across different sizes from massive to large to medium/large, and yet everyone was focused on MDM and information governance, and also many had an ERP context, or a BI context, or a joint ERP/packaged apps and BI context.  Each call was very different – each company being at a different phase of MDM, and each company had a different set of complexities and questions.  It was a testing time for me – but it was SO exciting.

In many of the calls I ended up answering questions by drawing on a white board.  The same pictures emerged over and over again.  Yet some of these pictures have not been documented before.  Yet the logic and the leverage of ideas that brought these graphics and dialog behind them, were spot on and filled the need of the user.  Some dialogs opened up new channels of thinking that have yet to be thought about by many other users.  Some dialogs opened up wholly new questions that I had not thought of.  Yet more concreted some very hot topics, trends or issues in my mind – and made them so clear, so obvious to me now.  These ideas needed attention; I could not park then in short term memory.  It was bursting and so I was not able to sleep or turn off.  I closed my eyes but pictures kept darting across the red colors on my closed eyes.

It is now Friday, and though my physical state is replenishing and looking forward to the evening’s rest, my mind just won’t stop.  New stuff to do; old stuff to re-do; more to update.  I don’t want the day to end.  It is all so obvious:  Data stewardship and MDM are blood brothers.  You need to start EIM with MDM; and virtually no self named EIM program will achieve its aims without MDM.  MDM is for life.  MDM has to be business led else it will be just traditional data integration.  ERP and other large packaged applications do NOT do data stewardship – you are lucky if they do a good job of managing their own data.  ERP (and other large packaged applications) need our help, big time.  Registry styles only go so far in support of information governance and MDM – it may not be the best place to end up at (in every case).  And another – BI is NOT information management!  Try that one out for size… more to come (you can imagine).

I am convinced that in five years time I won’t be researching MDM – but I will be researching information governance.  This is not a hope, or a desire, but recognition that finally, something as important as information governance will be legitimate, real, doable, at a cost that won’t be prohibitive, and in a manner that will be repeatable.  MDM is the catalyst.

Gartner has always said (the stated position) that MDM is a discipline, and one that includes or is focused on governance (of master data).  As such:

a)    No real MDM program exist without governance

b)    Governance of (just) master data is what MDM is

c)    You can’t do MDM without a hefty dose of governance

d)    You can govern a whole lot of information that is not master data (but that would be called something else, not MDM)

I have often said the following:  “Anybody asking to talk about information governance is really not saying much”.  The phrase has no context that is actionable.  What kind of information is to be governed?  As the context shifts across analytical data, transaction data, master data, metadata, content, records, “big data”, social data, so the driver for governance changes, the business case and sponsor too.  The technology needed to support it changes also.  I like to say that information governance is pretty much meaningless.

Most MDM offerings in the market today really only do a partial job at supporting stewardship (the operational side of governance) of the data for which they are responsible for.  No single vendor has a solution that is complete for governance all the mater data across the organization.  This gap – between the discipline of MDM that needs support for governance, and MDM tools that lack the depth, led to the emergence and rise of specific solutions targeted at governance.  This is Kalido’s Data Governance Director.  Other vendors have moved toward this space, but generally at an alarmingly slow pace.

However, trying to sell a solution for “information governance” is one thing.  Trying to sell the same tools to help establish governance of master data, as part of an MDM program, is something else.  Kalido is bundling their two offerings (governance and MDM) to deliver, basically, what is closer to what Gartner defines as Master Data Management.  This might be seen as a good thing – but for me it is recognition of the following:

• “Information governance” has to have a clear line of site to a business pain point, a business sponsor, a business case.
• MDM is one of the newest, hottest places where information governance tools can find applicability

In another orbit we have the whole world of enterprise business applications, such as ERP, SCM, CRM, Procurement, PLM, and various other industry packaged applications.  I include packaged applications, development applications and everything between.  In this orbit information governance is hardly talked about, yet all these application need their own application specific data, and they also need a copy of master data to work too.

Governing all this information for specific applications is another dimension entirely.  This is not what MDM solutions do- it is not what the MDM discipline does – it is what the business applications are supposed to do (we all thought) all along but generally didn’t (and still don’t) do well.  When will information governance come to those applications?  Soon, I hope.

I think “information governance” is coming – but not just yet.  I plan to be there when it happens.

The May 2011 Health Data Management magazine ran an article that rang so true for me, far beyond healthcare.  The article was titled, “To Scan or Not to Scan – Do meaningful use requirements for ‘structured data’ spell the end of document management systems?” There is a “yes” and a “no” answer to this.  Both are right, but over different time scales.

Short term, perhaps the next 2 to 10 years all the data that is created today will have to be described (think: metadata) in a way that makes its discovery, use and re-use workable.  This is the essence of the article.  This suggests that, in the case of healthcare, to qualify for federal funds (essential use), healthcare organizations need to show how they are supporting the adoption of Electronic Health Records.  As part of this, data objects (unstructured data) such as scans need to be made meaningful so that those same computer systems can use that data – instead of a separate “document management” system.  Thinking about what Mr. Beyer says, this makes a lot of sense.  Over time there must be increasing pressure to make “dumb data” meaningful by giving it structure.  In some cases the pursuit of profit will drive this continuous evolution and in others, like healthcare, it will be regulation.  As such there will be ever more structured data and much less unstructured data to worry about.  For this reason MDM, that has come to represent one of the most strategic efforts for information governance for reuse, will become ever more important.  That newly descried data needs to be governed for re-use and this is good news for MDM.  Of course, this is also even better news for metadata management.  For me though, metadata management has failed to attract the same aura that MDM and this is a shame.  Metadata is so important, but its who value is derived from flexibility, and this has inhibited a focus that is common with MDM.  Either way, metadata management and MDM are set to grow in popularity – period.

On the “no” side of this argument is another kind of innovation.  For every terabyte of “unstructured-but-soon-to-be-structured data we create, yet more stuff will be created in a format or form that is not yet even known beyond the handful of people that created it.  This means that ever more types of data will emerge.  Think of the evolution of music, its electronic formats, and the battle over rights that dictate methods of access.  So even though I do think that document management will, over the short to medium term, become less important, they won’t go away.  They will adapt to other forms of data that will emerge.  And of course, there is a long time gap between the “no” position of this argument, and the “yes” position.  So don’t dump your content management systems, yet.  Just make the more intelligent (like MDM) J

Bottom line – structure is required to make information meaningful. The more widely a piece of information can be used, the greater the need for governance.  This does NOT mean “more” governance – it might be one person.  MDM, the more recent attempt at starting an information governance program, will only get more important – to more organizations.  Check out Master Content Management in our upcoming Hype Cycle for Master Data Management, 2011.