Master Data Management: Herding Cats at Scale

Ralph Webster
April 25, 2025

Welcome back, digital wranglers of doom and duplicate records. This week, we’re tackling a beast so wild, so elusive, so politically fraught, it makes enterprise governance look like a spa retreat.

Yes, it’s Master Data Management — or as we like to call it, “herding cats at scale, while blindfolded, in a hurricane, with everyone yelling that their spreadsheet is the truth.”

The Main Story: Attack of the Duplicate Vendors

Imagine this: You're at the EA steering committee, proudly presenting your new single-source-of-truth data model. It’s clean, canonical, practically sings in UML.

Then Procurement chimes in: “Why is Acme Corp missing from the vendor list?”

You check. It’s there. So is ACME Corporation, Acme Ltd., and the mysterious ACM3 Supplies (DO NOT USE!!!).

Welcome to the wild world of MDM, where every department guards its data like a dragon hoards gold — and IT is left trying to deduplicate 27 versions of “truth.”

TOGAF to the Rescue (Eventually)

TOGAF, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t promise you clean data — but it does offer a lifeline: the Architecture Repository and Data Architecture phase (ADM Phase C).

Use them to:

Identify authoritative sources (and expose the frauds)
Model data lifecycles (and who’s allowed to touch what)
Set governance policies with actual teeth (and maybe some duct tape)

In short: TOGAF helps you build a Target Data Architecture where “one version of the truth” isn’t just an inspirational poster in the CIO’s office.

Educational Twist: Making MDM Slightly Less Maddening

Start with a business glossary: If you can’t agree on what a “customer” is, you’re already doomed.
Align data ownership: Hint: “everyone” = no one.
Automate where you can — but don’t skip the political groundwork.
Don’t confuse your MDM tool with an MDM strategy. A golden hammer won’t save you from data chaos if no one’s using the nail.

Cartoon Prompt

Ever battled a data dictionary that required a PhD in sarcasm to decode? Tell us your most maddening MDM moment — bonus points for screenshots.

Next Week’s Tease

Coming up: “The Escaped Developer: When engineers sneak into architecture meetings.” — a thrilling crossover episode where code meets capability modeling... and chaos inevitably ensues.