Margaret Y Chu - Collected Quotes

"An organization needs to know the condition and quality of its data to be more effective in fixing them and making them blissful. Unfortunately, pride, shame, and a fear of looking incompetent all play a part when people are asked to openly discuss dirty data issues. Because data are an asset, some people are unwilling to share their data. They think this gives them control and power over others. The role of politics in the organization is the dirty secret of dirty data." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Blissful data consist of information that is accurate, meaningful, useful, and easily accessible to many people in an organization. These data are used by the organization’s employees to analyze information and support their decision-making processes to strategic action. It is easy to see that organizations that have reached their goal of maximum productivity with blissful data can triumph over their competition. Thus, blissful data provide a competitive advantage." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Business rules should be simple and owned and defined by the business; they are declarative, indivisible, expressed in clear, concise language, and business oriented." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Clear goals, multiple strategies, clear roles and responsibilities, boldness, teamwork, speed, flexibility, the ability to change, managing risk, and seizing opportunities when they arise are important characteristics in gaining objectives." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"[…] dirt and stains are more noticeable on white or light-colored clothing. In the same way, dirty data and data quality issues have existed for a long time. But due to the inherent nature of operational data these issues have not been as visible or immense enough to affect the bottom line. Just as dark clothing hides spills and stains, dirty data have been hidden or ignored in operational data for decades." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Gauging the quality of the operational data becomes an important first step in predicting potential dirty data issues for an organization. But many organizations are reluctant to commit the time and expense to assess their data. Some organizations wait until dirty data issues blow up in their faces. The greater the pain being experienced, the bigger the commitment to improving data quality." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"[...] incomplete, inaccurate, and invalid data can cause problems for an organization. These problems are not only embarrassing and awkward but will also cause the organization to lose customers, new opportunities, and market share." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Let’s define dirty data as: ‘… data that are incomplete, invalid, or inaccurate’. In other words, dirty data are simply data that are wrong. […] Incomplete or inaccurate data can result in bad decisions being made. Thus, dirty data are the opposite of blissful data. Problems caused by dirty data are significant; be wary of their pitfalls."  (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Organizations must know and understand the current organizational culture to be successful at implementing change. We know that it is the organization’s culture that drives its people to action; therefore, management must understand what motivates their people to attain goals and objectives. Only by understanding the current organizational culture will it be possible to begin to try and change it." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Processes must be implemented to prevent bad data from entering the system as well as propagating to other systems. That is, dirty data must be intercepted at its source. The operational systems are often the source of informational data; thus dirty data must be fixed at the operational data level. Implementing the right processes to cleanse data is, however, not easy." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"So business rules are just like house rules. They are policies of an organization and contain one or more assertions that define or constrain some aspect of the business. Their purpose is to provide a structure and guideline to control or influence the behavior of the organization. Further, business rules represent the business and guide the decisions that are made by the people in the organization." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Vision and mission statements are important, but they are not an organization’s culture; they are its goals. A vision is the ideal they are striving to achieve. There may be a huge gap between the ideal and the current state of actions and behaviors."(Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"What management notices and rewards is the best indication of the organization’s culture." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)