Information Quality Management

For effective Information Quality Management it is essential that an organization tries to have direct influence on the perception of their information customers. Professor Shoshana Zuboff names as end products of information systems:

Ø Transformed work to increase value adding activities and decrease waste

Ø Correctly informed knowledge workers

All other products of information management, such as managed information, managed processes, data models, databases, internet applications, repositories, and technical infrastructure, are in her eyes nothing more than supporting service 'products' and interim 'product components' or tools.

From this point of view the use of just the words ‘data quality’ as replacement of the concept of ‘information quality’ is erroneous and dangerous. The words ’data quality’ draw the attention to the technical tools of information management, rather than where the focus should be: the behaviour of the people in the information production-chain.

The Japanese see supplier-customer relations as crucial in their thinking about value chains, and place this at the heart in their application of ‘Kaizen’ (continuous process improvement): defective products and services are merely symptoms of defective underlying processes. Hence, improve the processes so as to remove the root causes of the defects, and not the mere outcome of the processes. Critical success factors for this are:

Ø customer-focused product specifications

Ø definition of processes consistently across their value chain

Ø effective feedback loops throughout the value chain

Ø teamwork

Ø a clear-cut process for process improvement

Ø mistake-proofing techniques wherever they are appropriate

A full explanation of Information Quality Management is given in our courses.

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