Common mistakes

Data quality initiatives are not easy and unfortunately many fail to deliver real value. I have had many difficult moments over the last 16 years where mistakes have been made. I have seen initiatives that have done the following:

• Overspent or been delayed
• Never been completed
• Delivered as planned but failed to capitalize on greater opportunities that presented themselves during implementation work due to a lack of flexibility

This section reflects what was learned from each of these experiences.

Failure to implement best practices

This section is noticeably briefer than the best practices section. This is partly because many of the common mistakes in data quality initiatives involve a failure to identify and implement the best practices. In other words, the mistake is the inverse of the best practice.

This section will highlight just two of the best practices from the previous section and outline the potential cost of missing these....