Embracing a Metadata Strategy

By Scott Koegler

As the volume of data contained in enterprise IT systems continues to grow exponentially, fueled by corporate activity, increased digital business, and regulatory mandates to maintain business history, it's become imperative for IT leaders to understand how to manage that data. One way to better manage data is through the development of a strategy for using metadata -- often defined as data about data -- and understanding how it can be most useful in an organization.

The time is right for organizations to start considering how to use metadata, first in small projects and then developing a strategy across the enterprise, experts say.

"By 2010, more than 80 percent of the organizations effectively deploying a business process platform will employ a disciplined metadata management process enabled by a repository," says Jess Thompson, research vice president with Gartner Group.

To understand metadata, many experts point to the common library index card as an example.  The card contains data about the book, including its title, author, publication date, and where the book can be found.  But it doesn't contain the book itself.  This additional data is helpful, however, in understanding what the book is and whether it might be useful for a particular purpose. Practically speaking, the index card provides a way to catalog information for use at the right time by the right person or process.

Metadata is already contained in the properties panel of standard office documents.  Applications like Microsoft Word automatically update the fields with creation and revision date, author, number of keystrokes, and so on.  This information can be used to categorize the unstructured data in a text document without relying on the document's actual content. 

The data contained in databases may have better consistency and structure than that in a text document, but the data itself is often useless without its associated application.  In this case, metadata can often be created automatically even though the application itself does not create metadata. 

Regardless of the form in which data resides, each data type needs to be applied in context with the intended business purpose in order to provide value to the various stakeholders.  This multi-dimensional aspect means that creating and maintaining metadata is only the first step in developing a metadata strategy.  Making metadata useful requires applying the applicable set of rules, filters, and work flow, then delivering this information in a timely manner.

Creating a metadata strategy
The first thing to know about creating a metadata strategy is that the best approach is to start small, by selecting an information need that promises a high payoff based on its business value. While the idea of connecting data together across the enterprise to magically deliver pertinent information to the right person at the right moment may be within the realm of the use of metadata, the complexity and breadth of doing so is beyond current tools and capabilities.

"It's incredibly daunting," says Rob Karel, principal analyst with Forrester Research. "Trying to establish a metadata strategy on an enterprise level will fail because it is just not reasonable.  Besides, it probably isn't necessary.  The job of the CIO is to prioritize which metadata needs to be under control in order to improve performance."

Gartner's Thompson is more optimistic about the development of organization-wide metadata strategies.

"Most IT organizations already have the underpinnings in place as a starting point for developing their metadata strategies," he says. He points to four areas of IT management that already have strong footings in the organizational and cultural structure within the enterprise IT world: governance, life cycle management, operations management, and communication and collaboration.

Each of these areas could potentially benefit through the use of metadata because nearly all of an enterprise's information is contained within the data structure managed through these methods.

"CIOs must effectively manage the assets they produce," Thompson says. "They will need to come up with an efficient and effective way, and these areas are the most obvious since they are already in place."

Analysts recommend that CIOs understand the following steps to create a metadata strategy:

• Start small Setting up a metadata strategy is an iterative process. Start with a well defined function and devise a strategy to create and manage the metadata for that function.  Continue to refine the process until the results are valid and repeatable.
• Define one business function that can benefit Start by defining the business critical function that can best benefit from the use of metadata. Select a business function that can be easily evaluated for ROI. The best way to get support from other C-level executives or the board for other metadata projects is to ensure that you can demonstrate ROI.
• Make sure your basic controls are in place Before targeting corporate governance, operations management, or other areas for a metadata approach, make sure you already have your controls in place. The underlying structure and control can provide good starting points for metadata projects.
• Figure out whether metadata already exists or needs to be created Metadata that exists in office documents is created automatically, however some data types such as images and sound may require human review and input to create valid metadata.
• Start at the end Each information consumer is likely to have a different set of requirements. Using the library card example, one user may search by author name to find works by the person, while another may search by subject. This variation expands the integration and interpretation requirements of metadata exponentially.  "Start at the end result you are trying to achieve and work backward to identify the processes and data needed to obtain the results," Karel suggests.

Metadata can be a driver of solutions that deliver high value to an organization. But CIOs need to be cautious. They need to settle on using metadata in areas where they can produce tangible results, such as competitive advantages.

"Many failed metadata initiatives started as technology initiatives, without being mapped to real deliverables," Karel says. "In effect, they produced an answer without a question."

The task of finding the right data and turning it into useful information at the right time will only continue to become more difficult without an effective strategy in place.

Scott Koegler applies his 15 years experience as a CIO to writing about technology for publications including Network Computing, Information Week, Processor Magazine, and SmallBizResource.