Data Use Issues:
Data Relevance

Seminar title: "Putting Information Together: Building Integrated Data Repositories"

Date and place: Wednesday, February 9, 2000, University at Albany

Speaker: Professor Lakshmi Mohan, School of Business, University at Albany

Transcript of video and audio clip

So the first question is "How do you define what data is relevant?"

And the few pieces of expertise that Theresa mentioned that I bring to this table is the definition of relevance is in the context of use.

There is no point in collecting any data, unless you put it to some worthwhile use in solving a business or a management problem.

And, a favorite quote of mine is what you see in the slide is "a data warehouse by itself is a worthless luxury."

So anytime you see the phrase data warehousing, you also have to have attached to that data warehouse--what do you do with the data.

And in fact that was the title of my first presentation to CTG's seminars back in Spring '98, when they starting 'Using the Information in Government' project.

And you really need to know what do you do with the data.

And when you are looking at the use of data for decision support there is a very simple statement in the chart itself it says, if the system is not used for whatever be the reason, for political reasons, apathy, whatever, it is useless.

And so you've got to make sure in addition to getting the data warehouse, and in getting the system as well, you need to make sure that the factors governing its use by the people who actually make decisions, are all in place.

And that includes organization culture. That includes management style.

And if for whatever may be the reason the organization culture is "well business as usual."

Well if it is business as usual, that's the death knoll for the system, and that's the death knoll for the data warehouse as well.

So that you really need to look at, is this organization really ready to move on and use the data to improve the quality of the decision making?