Remediation should principally be prioritized according to business impact and risk. Not all defects have equivalent consequences, even when they occur at similar frequencies.
A defect affecting regulatory reporting, customer payments, safety-critical operations, executive reporting, or high-value master data may require immediate remediation. A larger number of defects affecting a low-impact optional field may legitimately receive lower priority.
A robust prioritization model may consider financial loss, regulatory exposure, operational disruption, customer impact, reputational damage, number of dependent systems, recurrence rate, remediation cost, and whether a Critical Data Element is involved.
This risk-based approach prevents Data Quality programs from becoming simple defect-count reduction exercises. The objective is not merely to maximize the number of corrected records but to improve fitness for purpose where poor data creates material consequences.
Governance should approve prioritization criteria and resolve conflicts where different business areas assign different importance to the same issue. Metadata and lineage provide evidence about downstream dependencies and affected processes.
DAMA's revision of Chapter 13 adds a clearer Critical Data Element concept and clarifies responsibility within the Data Quality Improvement Lifecycle, reinforcing risk-based prioritization.
Reference Topics: DAMA-DMBOK2 Chapter 13 — Issue Prioritization; Business Impact; Critical Data Elements; Risk; Remediation.
===============
