I was recently asked: “Should we wait until we fix the data quality problems in our source systems before we build a data warehouse?”

My answer: “Heck no!”

Of course, in a perfect world, all the data would be perfect. I’m not advocating that anyone stop striving for that goal. But in the real world, business people are making decisions based on data every day – whether that data is perfect or not.

If the business people don’t have a data warehouse, they’re just going to “grow their own” with spreadsheets and silos. Talk about data quality problems! Not to mention the lost productivity. It will be worse than it would have been with the data warehouse.

Don’t forget the importance of data quality, but on the same hand, don’t let it put the brakes on doing what’s best for the business.