In which Bill decides that data profiling is not necessary.

We sit down to keyboard to tell a sad tale
Of data project manager Bill, and his epic huge fail

Bill thought he had all that it took
He looked through the data model, “It reads like a book”

He happily flipped through tables and maps
Overjoyed to see a model so free of all gaps.

Then through the sales system checking the norm
Oh Joy! Oh Bliss! validation for each form!

“Why, golly” he said, “I’m really in luck”
“With all of this checking the data won’t suck!”

He knew data quality was a number one killer,
But with a model like this and all those good rules,
The data would be clean, perfect, tables of jewels.

He told his boss- “Hey, piece of cake!”
His boss was most happy at how little time it would take.

Then late one night, with a knock on his door,
In came his development lead, eyes to the floor.

“Something is wrong, and I don’t understand it.”
“The product code extractor, well, it’s not like we planned it!”

The codes were all wrong! But how could that be?
Bill went out to the data entry folks to take a look see.

“Oh those codes?” They said, not a care in the world.

“We just enter “X” then “4” and then double bee.”
“The checker always accepts that you see”

“We can’t spend time looking up codes!”
“We have orders to fill, we have to ship loads!”

“Besides the info you want is in a spreadsheet we use.”
“When they ask us which system, it’s that one that we choose.”

Bill’s boss was most thoughtful when told the bad news
He thought about all the money and time that he’d lose

“Bill” he said, a frown on his face.
“Your assumptions are a total disgrace”

“You need to look at what data is there.”
“When it comes to the model, the real world does not care.”

While getting HIS boss on the line with his auto-dialer,
Bill’s boss said to poor Bill “Don’t just stand there! Go get a profiler!”

Don’t Ignore your data.

Don’t you be like Bill! Check out the Datamartist data profiler.

Look your data right in the face.