Often lagging in priorities when it comes to data strategy, it appears that data quality is coming back in favor. As organizations expand beyond data exploration and discovery to putting real action in place organization wide based on these insights, the risk of getting the answer wrong or having dirty data is higher.  

But, this may be anecdotal supposition, even in light of the wide conversations I've had with clients.   What we do know quantitatively is:

1) Data quality is the most important topic for information governance according to our recent Business Technographics research for data and analytics.  In fact,

2) We see an uptick in data quality inquiries from last year.  

3) Vendors are introducing data preparation tools that infuse data quality and governance into analytic and BI processes

Anecdotal evidence and quantiative evidence leads me to the thought that there is a bigger shift happening in how we think about data quality, how we act upon it, and what doing so does for our buisnesses.  When things are a-changing it always make my brain itch to get more data, more stories, and more evidence.  And, while I'm curious, I'm assuming you are too. It is great to see that something in influencing change – and we want to know what that is in order to determine if we too need to change.  However, what is more important is what are organizations doing and which are standing out in terms of success and improved ways of thinking and execution?  In the end, do we need to write a new playbook* for data quality?  Has the bar been reset and we need to rebenchmark?

To get to the bottom of this, today we launched our global data quality survey as part of a wider research effort happening around data quality and trust.  We are hoping you will participate and even throw your hat in for follow-up conversations.  You can complete this survey by going to: https://forrester.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aaQKECFhB4WlOWF

Thanks ahead for providing feedback.  You can also reach me directly if you would like to be interviewed: mgoetz@forrester.com.

–Michele

*I use the term "playbook" broadly, without reference or suggestion that Forrester will be creating a Playbook on data quality.