Information Integrity - The Key to Decision Integrity
Hank Sobah, CQE, CQA, ISCEET
Vice-Chair Information Integrity Group

With far greater emphasis being placed on Fact Based Decision Making, it's time to consider the importance of the quality and integrity of the information you base your facts on.  Whether it's Organizational Knowledge, Process Metrics, Customer Data or any other form of information, too little emphasis on the quality of your data can lead to poor performance and bad decisions.  Regulatory agencies are now insisting that some organizations begin to use processes and products that can assist them in assuring high levels of data quality.

Consider the bank that doesn't realize they may be doing business with a known criminal, or a pharmaceutical company whose very existence depends on their understanding of the information they collect.  Consider all of those companies that waste untold sums of money sending multiple catalogs - some of little or no interest - to the same address, or the purchasing organization that does not know that the company is using a far more expensive version of a common part or supply.  There are many opportunities to improve an organization's financial performance simply by fine tuning and managing the information that they use in their day to day operations.  Tools and processes exist that can help that bank "know their customer" and can help the drug companies analyze and understand the data that affects the very lives of their customers.  At the heart of it all is a desire and a need to focus on the integrity and availability of the right information at the right time.

With this increased requirement for good data and information comes a new organization within ASQ to focus on Information Integrity.  That organization is the newly founded Information Integrity Group (I2G) formed in May. Quality principles have yet to be fully aligned with the Information Age that we now live in. I2G plans to evolve an Information Integrity Framework that has a direct correlation to existing quality principles.  The group had its first networking session at AQC in Toronto .  Ramon Nayar, chair of this new group and I facilitated the first I2G meeting.  The session provided a free-flow of information, sharing perspectives on information integrity from approximately 30 attendees.  Watch this site for future announcements and more information on the Information Integrity Group.