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How do you improve your own data quality with the Metro model?

By separating what belongs at which level. The Metro model, built on ISO 9001 by the data quality working group of DAMA Netherlands, splits data quality management into a strategic, a tactical and an operational layer. That way a measure lands where it can actually be carried out, instead of a board-level ambition that nobody can act on.

Data quality matters more as organisations try to work from data. The harder question is not whether data is correct and complete, but whether it is actually used. The Metro model is a framework that helps structure and improve data quality management, and it is built on ISO 9001.

DAMA Netherlands and the data quality working group

Marco Heij and Peter van Nederpelt are active in DAMA NL, part of the international DAMA network for knowledge sharing on data management. The data quality working group develops standards and instruments, the Metro model among them, so organisations do not have to invent the same thing again.

What the Metro model is

A layered way of looking at data quality, with a strategic, a tactical and an operational level. The value is in the separation: an ambition set at board level needs translating into something a team can do on a Tuesday, and without the layers that translation gets skipped.

• Strategic sets direction and priorities, and ties data quality to goals the organisation already has
• Tactical turns that into standards, roles and ownership
• Operational is where it becomes concrete: analysis, cleaning, checks and process improvement

Why it helps

Most data quality efforts stall because a measure is proposed at the wrong level. A rule agreed at board level with nobody to run it is a rule that does not happen. Placing each measure in a layer makes visible who has to do what, and what is missing.

Based on an episode of the Databewuster podcast, recorded in Dutch. The episode, the summary and the full transcript are on the podcast page. This English article describes what was discussed; it does not quote the guest directly, because the conversation was in Dutch.