Putting Information Back in IT

It is readily understood that IT stands for information technology. In my experience, however, IT organizations are primarily focused on technology and give very little attention to information. Companies spend millions of dollars and resources on technology in IT and by comparison spend virtually nothing on managing information effectively. As we move into the information age, IT organizations must be prepared to support the information requirements of the business and not simply their technology needs.

To drive the point home, consider the following analogy. The XYZ sales and distribution company has industry-leading warehousing and shipping capabilities. They have the physical infrastructure to store virtually any size product. Additionally, warehousing technology enables the company to pick, pack and ship product at unbelievable speeds.

There is a problem, however. During the pick, pack and ship process, products are often damaged or the wrong products are packed. While shipping occurs at lightning fast speeds, incomplete orders are regularly shipped or sent to the wrong customer.

Would anyone consider this company successful? It is not important how much product they can store nor is it imperative that they employ cutting-edge technology to ship customer orders at the fastest speeds imaginable. In the end, if the company fails to deliver the right product to the right customer with the right quality, then they have failed.

Information is a lot like the products in the example just mentioned. Technology is absolutely necessary to deliver information to the customer - the knowledge worker. The quality of the information - completeness, accuracy, timeliness, and so on - is far more important to the customer than the delivery mechanism. Despite this fact, IT organizations expend most of their effort on the storage and delivery of information and nothing on the quality of the information being delivered.

A fundamental lack of information management produces deleterious results. Observations by the Gartner Inc. anticipate that nearly 50% of all data warehouse projects will fail because of data quality issues. This is precisely because IT organizations are not focusing on the importance of information, such as data quality.

There is a very simple test I use to determine whether an IT organization is giving the proper attention to information: I examine the IT department's mission and vision statements. Time and time again, I see absolutely nothing in either statement regarding information, but plenty of attention to technology.

As an example, consider the following mission and vision statements from the National Institutes of Health's IT department:¹

NIH IT Mission Statement

Office information technology (OIT) will maximize customer satisfaction by:

Facilitating business process; and
Empowering customer with leading-edge technologies.

NIH IT Vision Statement

Adapt and adjust to customer needs within architectural standards;
Partner with customers to proactively enhance business processes;
Maximize existing and future IT investments;
Continuously increase technology awareness and knowledge; and
Employ trend-forecasting techniques to anticipate both new technologies and new uses for IT

These mission and vision statements from the National Institutes of Health Office of information technology repeatedly mention technology but fail to mention information even once. For all practical purposes, they have removed the "I" from their IT department and are really just a technology department.

The National Institutes of Health is certainly not an anomaly in this regard. I have reviewed dozens of IT mission statements, and every one of them fails to address information as foundational to their IT directive.

Here are some practical steps you can take in order to address the information requirements of your company:

Enhance the IT mission and vision statements to give equal attention to information and technology (and be prepared to act on it!).
Develop high quality data models that represent the real world and business objects, not the IT applications.
Implement and maintain a corporate glossary.
Conduct a data quality initiative to determine the extent and cause of "bad data."
Interview the business to understand the cost of data quality problems.
Implement data stewardship and governance.

All of these suggestions are part of an enterprise data management strategy. A company must develop and implement a data strategy that focuses on the information requirements of the organization from the customer's perspective. This is by no means a trivial task. However, if done properly, the IT department will deliver high-quality information to the customer and ameliorate costly data quality problems.

If IT is going to support business in the information revolution, then IT must be prepared to focus on information. Is your IT department focused merely on technology, or can you say that you are truly an information and technology organization?

Reference:

1. National Institutes of Health mission and vision statements found at http://oit.od.nih.gov/showpage.aspx?pageid=32

Ken Karacsony has more than 12 years of consulting and professional experience in IT. He is currently working for a major automotive company as the enterprise data architect. Karacsony is an author and lecturer who has presented at the international DAMA conference and the international data quality (IAIDQ) conferences. You can contact him at Ken.Karacsony@Verizon.net.

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Data Management