By Ilaria Baroni – Cefriel
During these weeks, the pilots involved in the second round of the ACTION accelerator are preparing the Data Quality plans for their projects. A template was created to guide them in the process, it was briefly introduced during the webinar dedicated to data, and then discussed with pilots in one-to-one interviews. The content of this document is divided mainly in three parts: a cause-effect matrix, a table to highlight the involved dimensions, and a section to set up the activities to improve data quality.
The cause-effect matrix was created starting from Ishikawa fishbone diagram (https://www.6sigma.us/etc/what-is-ishikawa-fishbone-diagram/), where the six Ms are used to analyse possible causes of a problem. In this case, the problem highlighted is the low quality of the data collected, and pilots can use it to list all possible causes.
The second table lists all the dimensions that could be relevant for data quality, taken from literature (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8642813). It is not mandatory to use all of them, because their selection is subjective, depending on the characteristics of the specific project. The selected dimensions need to be completed with one or more Data Quality Indicator (DQI), with the respective activities to measure it, the goal (a threshold discriminating between acceptable/not acceptable quality), and the current quantification.
The third table is created to insert a list of activities to improve data quality, connecting each of them to one or more DQI, and specifying the planned scheduling and one or more responsible.
The ongoing process is really promising, with multiple interactions among ACTION experts and pilots to refine the document for each pilot.