I’ve come across a few examples recently where people either have, or have nearly, re-invented something that already existed in an organisation.
This can be termed “re-inventing the wheel”. Clearly, such activities would be a waste of resources, but what was the nature of the problems, and how could they be avoided? (more…)
As a facilitator I’ve worked with a wide range of teams from those planning the strategic future of the company through to small teams trying to solve their day to day issues. I find the way teams work fascinating and like a lot of people in the UK I’m curious to see how the new coalition cabinet manage to sort out their differences.
To shed some light on the development of teams we’re delighted to have a guest blogger, Rhys Jones from Team Factor. Rhys specialises in maximising the effectiveness of teams through workshops, facilitation and training and below he explains the process of team development (more…)
A number of our posts and those of others, such as the excellent post by Jim Harris – “Predictably poor data quality” on the Dataflux Community of Experts site are exploring the concept of “behavioural data quality” – or people as part of the data quality problem.
A common concern is that people sometimes don’t treat data as if it matters, unless there is a direct impact on them. Building on the this area and our previous post “Would you allow this?” made me wonder what would happen if data were made of gold and radioactive? (more…)
Recently the UK government published extracts from the COINS database. COINS stands for the Combined On-line Information System and the extract contains details of all expenditure by UK Government Departments over £25K for the years 2008/9 and 2009/10. Expenditure is divided into budget expenditure, actual and forecast out-turn data. The release of this data comes as a result of the current coalition government’s desire for greater openness.
If we take a look at these extracts from a data quality perspective, then this may give an indication of whether any resulting analysis needs to be treated with “a pinch of salt”.
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Our popular series of blog posts describing the different behaviours to be found in The Data Zoo and how they impact data quality has now been updated, enhanced and published as a White Paper. This White Paper is also available in ebook form from the Data Quality Pro web site.
A current topic in the news in the United Kingdom relates to a report by the Mental Health Foundation about how modern life leads to people being more lonely and the physical and mental health impacts of this loneliness. In a radio interview today, an interviewee was heard to state that modern working life makes them more lonely, because they have to spend so much time entering data to do their jobs, that they can’t afford the time to interact with colleagues as part of their work.
So does this mean that data makes you lonely?!? (more…)
I was highly delighted to read that the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron has banned mobile phones and the like from Cabinet meetings.
Like most people I find a mobile phone a great way to keep in touch but as a facilitator I know what a nuisance they can be in meetings. They distract people, stop people giving their all to the discussion and can throw the agenda right off track. Worse in my opinion is the Crackberry, where the owner can’t resist the temptation to check their email and starts pressing buttons under the table where they think they can’t be seen! (more…)
With the British General Election having produced a hung parliament our political leaders are in the unusual position of having to try and strike a deal to form a government. As most facilitators will tell you, getting a disparate group to reach a consensus on how to tackle an issue or to agree a joint way forward is one of the most demanding parts of the job.
So what approaches seem to work? Here’s some ideas (more…)
At a recent talk by Professor Graham Braithwaite of Cranfield University on the role and work of the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the approaches taken to investigating an accident, it made me think about whether similar approaches may work for data.
This did not immediately become a blog post, but having read Jim Harris’s blog post on the “The Poor Data Quality Jar” and the subsequent discussion of this post, I resurrected this idea.
Do you think there is a place for the Data Accident Investigation Board? (more…)
Triage is a technique used in medical emergencies to help prioritise scarce care resources towards those most in need. Various versions of triage have been developed and refined since the concept was first developed in the First World War.
Similar concepts can be applied to the large range of software that some organisation end up owning.