An overview of the data discovery process

Data discovery is the process where an organization obtains an understanding of which data matters the most and identifies challenges with that data. The outcome of data discovery is that the scope of a data quality initiative should be clear and data quality rules can be defined.

This starts with understanding the strategy of your organization, the objectives of key stakeholders, and crucially, what is getting in the way of fulfilling these. It is important to ask stakeholders to talk about this holistically and not to filter their answers, based on what they think might be data quality related. It is very common for issues to appear to have little to do with data, but when an investigation takes place, a link to data quality is uncovered. Clearly, not every problem will have a data quality root cause, but it is important to have the chance to form your own expert opinion.

Once the strategy and objectives are well understood, it is time...