Conduct Data Quality Assessment

(Activity) for Tier: Data Management

PURPOSE

This activity is an audit of the data. The Data Steward follows the instructions or goals in the Data Quality Plan to evaluate the quality of a particular set of data. It is beyond the scope of this activity to define the quality of the data.

Note

This activity is different from application testing efforts in that testers usually evaluate release candidates; they are not responsible for ensuring the data is correct after an application has been deployed. This activity is conceptually concerned with production data.

WHEN

As defined by the Data Quality Assessment Frequency

PARTICIPATING ROLES

ENTRY CRITERIA

  • A data profiling plan exists, and the plan is executable by a data steward.

SUB-ACTIVITIES

  1. Conduct Assessment

    • Using the plan, conduct the assessment (audit the data).

  2. Record Assessment Results

    • Record the date of the event.
    • Consider recording the time it took to execute the plan. (A team may use this information to prioritize adding more automation.)
    • Record the outcome. Were data quality objectives met, mostly met, or not met?
    • Record date of the assessment and results per team procedures.

    Note

    Results should be made available to stakeholders, if they cannot for security or sensitivity reasons, consider splitting up the event information. Record that the event happened in a way interested parties can see that an event happened and store other details in a more secure manner.

  3. Create Issues

    • When data quality objectives are not met. Create an issue work item to track the issue and provide traceability for stakeholders to a future data cleansing activity.
    • Tag the issue with a “data quality assessment” tag.

EXIT CRITERIA

  • Issue work items are created when quality objectives are not met.

SEE ALSO

Process Guidance Version: 10.4