How to Explain Data Management to Senior Management in Less Than 5 Minutes

As professionals we need to be able to quickly describe what Data Management is, and what the benefits are to the business. When my boss, the CIO of a building products manufacturing organization, asked me to prepare a ½ hour slide show for the general managers of the 5 divisions on an enterprise-wide Data Management initiative I jumped at the chance. I knew it wasn't much time, but I was able to create an overview of the the staff activities, and what was needed from the divisions.

When I was asked to shrink it down to 15 minutes, I knew it would be difficult, but I was able to boil it down to its essence. When asked to do it in 5 minutes I knew I had to be creative. 2 slides in 2 minutes got their attention, and the time I needed to explain what needed to be done:

How to completely re-think the presentation
How to graphically represent the problem
How to hook the audience quickly
How to get the audience to become involved

Ray McGlew is a senior Data Management leader with experience in Data Architecture, Data Warehousing, Team Leadership, Data Governance, Metadata Management, Project Managemt and all phases of Data Life Cycle development. He created his first integrated Data Mart in 1981 non-IT professionals to use, and is focused on helping his teams to make good Data Management a part of the business, not strictly an IT function. He has taught IT and Data Management concepts and implementation at the undergraduate level, and has spoken at local and international conferences. Ray has addressed Data Management challenges in the Pharmaceutical, Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production, Manufacturing, Services, Aerospace, and Financial organizations. Ray currently leads the Data Architecture team at Fulton Financial Corporation, a regional Financial Services organization in Central Pennsylvania.