Dealing with Complexity: A Method to Adapt and Implement a Maturity Model for Corporate Data Quality Management

Reference models usually serve as starting points for developing company specific models. Unfortunately, successful usage of reference models is often impeded by various aspects, such as a lack of acceptance among employees, incorrect model implementation, or high project costs all of which more often than not are resulting from an imbalance between the model's complexity and the complexity of a company's specific structures. The paper at hand develops a methodical approach for taking a given reference model (the Maturity Model for Corporate Data Quality Management) and transforming it into a company specific model, with a particular focus on the specific complexity of a company's structures. Corporate Data Quality Management describes the quality oriented organization and control of a company's key data assets such as material, customer, and vendor data. Two case studies show how the method has been successfully implemented in real-world scenarios.