When you are planning to implement a Master Data Management strategy in your business you need to make sure you have the right team assisting with the process. MDM is big, complex and important. Plus, it’s getting bigger every year. The MDM market is expected to have a 15.6% CAGR over the next five years. Having the right people involved from the start can make a world of difference when you take on an MDM project.
You need to identify the relevant roles in your project and the best people to fill them.
We’ve gone over this in previous blogs and our MDM ebook. There are two basic routes you can take to find your MDM sponsor. If you intend to apply MDM as the core strategy in your corporation, you’re going to want to find someone in a high-level position such as your CEO. Since the MDM will involve each of the departments in your organization, you need someone who has influence and an interest in every aspect of your company.
However, if you want to implement MDM in only a certain department in your company, go with a position that is not quite C suite. Your department head or supervisor would be a great fit to ensure you have buy-in across your office.
The important thing is to find a sponsor who can be the MDM stakeholder that understands the company’s problems that you’re attempting to solve. The person needs to have the ability to help you obtain the resources needed to complete the project and hold everyone involved accountable. They should have more influence than a frontline employee in the organization and have the ability to communicate up the chain of command so your execs can stay informed.
This one will be broken down into smaller roles based of the complexity and goals of your Master Data Management project. These are the people who will build and most often use the MDM technology. There may be roles listed here that aren’t as necessary for you, or there could be some missing. You should base your team off the needs of your organization and the project at hand. Your tech team might include:
The lower level sysadmin person will be a good resource for connecting with the end users. They will also know a lot about the day to day interactions of programs and data. If you have a large tech presence in your company you may already have a DBA. If you don’t, you will need one for a large scale MDM implementation. This person needs to set up the server or cloud environment that you will be hosting the MDM technology on. This can be a temporary part time gig for the life of the project.
You probably already have developers or programmers y on your team. These are the people who will customize or build your new user interfaces. They should be able to implement the more complex data aspects. Integration experts need to have a deep understand of your current system and technologies. This is often current team member who can stand up the assimilations between the MDM and related technologies.
Your MDM specialist should be someone who will remain employed by, or associated with your company. Whether it is a new or current employee, a part or full time position, this person will need to remain associated with the project after it launches. If you are incorporating an exceptionally large MDM program you may need multiple people in this role. These folks will be dedicated to the MDM program and not have additional duties. This position shouldn’t be viewed as a secondary job. They will work with the MDM moving forward as well as during the project implementation.
Depending on the size of your company and the scope of your MDM project, this could be one person or a whole team of people. This person will eat, sleep, and breathe data. They will focus on the grand ecosystem of the data throughout your organization. They also should have a good grasp on where your data resides, and what kind of standards you want your MDM program to abide by.
One of the pivotal roles of a data architect can be to help push change and growth through the organization when it comes to policies for data management necessities. There will be certain goals you want to hit regarding data with your MDM project that others will have trouble adjusting to. A data architect can help with that transition.
For more information about the types of people you need on your MDM team connect with us at Aspirant. Fill out the form below.