Chapter 13 – Management Guidance for MDM

Publisher Summary This chapter addresses the ongoing management issues by offering some management guidelines for transitioning the project from developing the business case to maintaining a successful program. It provides a high-level, end-to-end overview of the activities associated with developing the master data management (MDM) program. This process begins with the initial activities of determining the business justifications for introducing MDM, developing a road map, identifying roles and responsibilities, and planning the stages of the MDM development projects. The process continues through the middle stages of documenting the business process models, developing a metadata management facility, instituting data governance, and analyzing and developing master data models. Finally, it extends to the later stages of development, such as selecting and instantiating MDM architectures, developing master data services, deploying a transition strategy for existing applications, and then maintaining the MDM environment. Master data management can provide significant value to growing enterprise information management initiatives, especially when MDM improves interapplication information sharing, simplifies application development, reduces complexity in the enterprise information infrastructure, and lowers overall information management costs.