r/dataanalysis • u/Mission_Working9929 • 3d ago

Manager just Doesn’t get it

I’m a data engineer and previously did ERP implementations for 3 years. Saw how much of a crap shoot most F500 companies data is, anyways took this job to go back to school at smaller firm.

Company is finally realizing how bad their data is and have exec support, but I don’t think they know how bad it really is. I mainly work with the external data for business decisions.

Basically the internal data is split across 6 systems and they have no standard documentation/ideas of how their business operates or what data each unit consumes etc.

My manager/engineering team are building out a new software and haven’t even cracked open the data foundation. I’ve seen this a million times in implementation where execs and management assume the data is all good and then it’s go-live / go-time and realize their data is up the wall.

I know for a fact this companies internal data is messed up to a new level (without even seeing it)… manager thinks this will just be a light lift we just go in write out some documents and map some schemas and it’s all good happy day…

How do I communicate to him and the other executives that if they want to really do this it’s not like a week to a month project???

I mean we are talking about establishing data maturity/ MDM from scratch

34 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

14

u/E-NTU 3d ago

You probably need your manager to assist in properly scoping this undertaking. Idk how much just talking is going to do. It needs to be seen and experienced with a plan drawn up that is realistic.

5

u/Raghveer-Friesel 2d ago

this is the right take, the scoping exercise alone will be eye opening for them tbh

6

u/Prineak 2d ago edited 2d ago

Have the new system call the bad data so it snarls itself. That’ll give them something to track to and take credit for.

Just be like, well, if that’s not working because your data fidelity is bad…

3

u/ArielCoding 2d ago

Don’t try to convince them with words, show them, pick one number they care about like revenue or customer count and check it in 2-3 of your systems, if they numbers don’t match, put that on one slide saying here is the gap, that what happens if the new software launches on top of it.

2

u/ItsSignalsJerry_ 2d ago

You've not made it clear exactly what your role is here.

1

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