IF

An Ode to
Data Control

If you can keep your data when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust your metrics when analysts doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can query and not be tired by waiting,
    Or building models, adjust for outliers,
Define ETL modules that are self-validating,
    And require contracts from data suppliers;

If you can report — and not make KPIs your master;
    If you can forecast — and not make compliance your aim,
If you can make the overnight batch faster
    And ensure the end results are just the same:
If you can't bear two versions of truth spoken
    Produced by silos to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the systems you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with off-the-shelf tools;

If you would make one lake with all your data
    And risk it on one vendor's big bang plan,
And lose, and start again at invitation-to-tender
    And salvage from the project, what you can:
If you can force your flat files and mainframe
    To serve datamarts when key DBAs retire,
And so hold on when stakeholders proclaim
    Why (oh why) is our Data Quality so dire?

If you can talk with architects and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with CEOs — nor lose the accounting touch,
If neither UTF-8 nor PII can hurt you,
    If all teams count with you, but none too much:
If you can keep Data Owners beholden
    To uploads that are timely and accurate and whole,
Yours is the Earth and clean records (golden),
    And—which is more—you’ll have Data Control!

https://datacontroller.io