The DCAM Data Management capabilities that are required to provide the heightened level of controls on the data described in the BCBS 239 Principles have been mapped to DCAM v.1

Since DCAM is a capability model, level 5 (Achieved) is the target against the BCBS 239 mapped capabilities within the context of the Risk Data Domains and is required to provide the desired controls.

In this case, you wouldn’t need a level 5 against every function, system, domain, etc., but only against those that relate to the management of risk data.

Measuring maturity is determined by whether you have applied those capabilities to all the data in scope to BCBS 239.

For example: if you have only applied the controls to half of the data in your scope data set, you would only be 50% mature related to BCBS 239.

Updated mapping of BCBS 239 to DCAM v.2 is being developed and will be released in 2020.

The Benchmark Survey is a 24-question survey that provides an overall indicator of the level of data management capability and structure that exists across a variety of industries and countries. Since the Benchmark Survey uses the DCAM Assessment model as its framework for analysis, a method for comparing the Benchmark Survey score to a DCAM Assessment Score can be useful for further insights into an organization’s data management capabilities and how it compares to other industries.

The 24 Benchmark survey questions cover the scope of 31 DCAM Capabilities; however, since there is not a 1:1 correlation, the scores between the survey and an assessment can only be compared at the Component level — not at the Capability or Sub-capability levels.

To compare a Benchmark score with a DCAM Assessment score at the Component level, average the Benchmark scores that pertain to a particular component to calculate the Benchmark Component score that compares to a DCAM Assessment Overall Component Score.

Yes! Our 2020 Industry Benchmark Visualization Tool allows members to create different combinations of filtering.

https://edmcouncil.org/page/Benchmarkembed

No, the Benchmark Survey responses were anonymous and it cannot be determined who provided specific answers.

The Industry Benchmark survey is completed anonymously from multiple industries (not just EDM Council members). The EDM Council has no way to determine if the returned surveys are the results of a single representative from an organization or the compilation of responses from within that organization.

The benchmark surveys are completed anonymously with a series of profile questions that provide an analytical comparison to an organization’s DCAM Assessment scores. The demographics of the responding global organizations permit analysis of such characteristics as industry, sector, geography, data management tenure. 

All of the benchmark data from completed surveys can be accessed at: https://edmcouncil.org/page/IndustryBenchmark2020

Using DCAM as a framework without immediately executing it as an assessment is reasonable. However, some organizations do a baseline assessment, as it can be a good way to educate the DM stakeholders. If the organization has limited funds, the focus should be on training the stakeholders before funding an assessment.

If DQ is the primary focus, the target is to simultaneously advance several of the other Components to support the DQ efforts.

Strategy: what data is most important to the business? Focus on that data first.

Program: Are the resources and funding necessary for that data available?

Business & Data Architecture: Are business SMEs involved to ensure the data is understood in the context of the data producer and data consumer business process? Does the organization have the ability to inventory and catalog the data while capturing base level metadata?

DQ Management: Is the organization able to generate DQ rules and measure the quality of the data? Has the organization adopted a Dimension of Quality model? Does an issues-management process exist to prioritize and control defects to a resolution?

Data Governance: How are authoritative decisions made about these processes, what data is in scope, and how are the DQ rules and issues adopted into the management process?

Data Control Environment: if the organization can do all the above in collaboration, it will have established a control-environment around the initial data in scope. Then it can expand to the next set of priority data.

The use of the term Construct in DCAM is in contrast to the term Model. The official definitions of these two terms are in the EDMC DM Business Glossary. The commentary that is in both definitions explains the relationship between the terms. 

The listing of Processes, Tools & Constructs in DCAM intends to identify things that are likely needed to execute the capabilities described in DCAM from an industry-standard perspective. As our members develop these best practice examples, they will be vetted by the DCAM Governance structure and posted in the DCAM Knowledge Portal. We will link to the best practice from DCAM. An industry-standard best practice will always need customization for execution into your organization.

Introduction

A DCAM^® assessment can either analyze an organization based on its capabilities, its sub-capabilities, or both. A standard scoring methodology, based on the DCAM Assessment Scoring Guide, is required to eliminate any variance that could occur when comparing the results of a capability assessment and a sub-capability assessment.

DCAM-7 Component Score Calculation – Without Analytics Management

To correctly calculate an overall DCAM-7 Component score, it is essential to begin the calculation by averaging the scores for each sub-capability respondent to the capability level. This ensures that sub-capabilities and capabilities will be evenly weighted if there are both sub-capability and capability respondents. Once a respondent’s sub-capability scores are averaged to the capability level, that respondent’s score will be averaged with the other respondents who participated at either the sub-capability or capability level to calculate the capability score. Capability scores in each component are averaged together to calculate the component score, and the component scores are averaged together to calculate the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score.

It is important not to use any rounding until calculating the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score, at which point the answer will be presented to two decimal places.

It is also important to make sure that respondents do not skip any questions during the assessment, which will skew the weighting of the overall responses. If a respondent does not know how to respond to a particular question, their score for that question should be a 1.

If respondents from a survey only participate at either the sub-capability or capability level, the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score will still be calculated in the same manner, but without the contributions from the other type of respondent.

Lastly, overall sub-capability scores can be calculated by averaging all the responses for a particular sub-capability to understand and identify strengths and weaknesses at these particular sub-capabilities, but these scores are not used in the calculation of the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score.

Model

Incorrect Method of Calculation

The reason the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score is calculated by averaging the sub-capability scores from each respondent to the capability level, rather than averaging all of the responses of each sub-capability first, and then averaging those scores together, is due to the weighting issue that occurs when a survey consists of respondents from both the capability and sub-capability level.

Example

In the above model, if we calculated the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score by first calculating the overall sub-capability scores, and then averaging them together to the capability level, it would look like:

Calculating each of the sub-capability scores first, before averaging to the capability level, reduces the contribution of each sub-capability respondent (in this example: 4 respondents) to only one capability score that has equal weight with the respondents who participated at the capability level.

In this example, even though the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score is only off one basis point from the original calculation, it can be assumed that if each capability were calculated in this fashion, the impact to the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score would have been much greater.

Having a consistent method to calculate the overall DCAM-7 Component score prevents confusion and ensures that DCAM scores maintain a high level of credibility.

Overall DCAM-8 Component Score Calculation – With 8.0 Analytics Management

To calculate the Overall DCAM-7 Component score, Overall 8.0 Analytics Management score, and Overall DCAM-8 Component score, the calculation is essentially the same: Sub-capability respondents will have their individual answers averaged together to the capability level, to be averaged together with Capability respondents (if applicable), and then jointly combined into the Component score calculation. If an organization wants to utilize the Analytics Management analysis into their assessment – they would complete the questions for Component 8.0. If a company chooses not to include the 8.0 Analytics Management component, the 8.0 questions and scores can be disregarded, and the calculation performed as before.

Assuming the 8.0 Analytics Management component is included in the assessment, Sub-capability and Capability respondents would answer the questions and their scores would be averaged to the Component level as normal, but the Component Score level is when 3 different scores would be calculated by the following:

• The Overall DCAM-7 Component Score: The average of Component Scores 1-7
• The Overall 8.0 Analytics Management Score: The average of 8.0 Capabilities
• The Overall DCAM-8 Component Score: The average of Component scores 1-8.

Incorrect Method of Calculation

It is important to recognize that calculating the Overall DCAM-8 Component score does not mean averaging the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score with the Overall 8.0 Analytics Management score, but rather is averaging all eight components together.

Example

In Model 3 (above), if we calculated the Overall DCAM-8 Component Score by averaging the Overall 8.0 Analytics Management Score with the Overall DCAM-7 Component Score, it would look like:

Averaging the scores in this way would significantly over-weight the contribution of the 8.0 Analytics Management score on the Overall DCAM-8 Component score.

In conclusion, it is important when calculating DCAM scores, to average participants’ responses to the Capability level, and then calculate either the Overall DCAM-7 Component or Overall DCAM-8 Component score based on whether or not the 8.0 Analytics Management component is incorporated into the assessment.

Comparing Scores

Overall DCAM-7 Component and DCAM-8 Component

To compare an assessment score with a prior version of DCAM that did not include the 8.0 Analytics Management component, a comparison can only be made between the Overall DCAM-7 Component Scores. Once you have two or more assessments completed with the 8.0 Analytics Management component included, you can then make comparisons of the Overall 8.0 Analytics Management Score and the Overall DCAM-8 Component Score.

The most current assessment support materials are available in the DCAM User Group on EDMConnect, on the DCAM Tools page. This is a group open to all EDMConnect members; if you haven’t already, join this User Group.

There is no formal control over an organization completing a DCAM Assessment and the resulting score. There is support as follows.

EDMC provides tools and has two approved vendors (Pelustro & KickTag) that provide a fully configured DCAM Assessment survey platform. All of these tools are configured with the approved scoring methodology. The EDMC Tools are available on EDMConnect on the DCAM v2 Tools page.

The EDM Council also maintains a DCAM Authorized Partner (DAP) program. The DAP is the training and certification mechanism by which consultants and advisors are licensed to deliver DCAM-based assessments and to consult on the execution of the DCAM Framework. The goal of the DAP program is to verify that representatives of the DAP are fully versed in the data management principles and capabilities of DCAM.

Achieving quality data in an organization is not in itself a competitive differentiator. The competitive advantage is what an organization does with that data in analytics to support decision making.

By sharing Data Management best practice based on the DCAM Framework, organizations can leverage one another’s learning curve and accelerate the development of industry-standard processes, tools, and constructs available to all. The organization can then customize the best practice for granular execution of the data management processes in their organization. Harnessing the industry crowd wisdom will not only let an organization get to repeatable and sustainable Data Management processes faster, but they will continue to leverage new best practices as Data Management evolves.

The EDM Council DCAM User Group collects best practices based on the execution of the DCAM Framework. These examples of best practice are vetted in a workgroup made up of Data Management practitioners with subject matter expertise on the specific topic. Once vetted and approved by the DCAM Steering Committee, the best practice is published in the DCAM Knowledge Portal.

Participation in the DCAM User Group and access to the DCAM Knowledge Portal is open to representatives from EDM Council member organizations.

The EDM Council also maintains a DCAM Authorized Partner (DAP) program. The DAP is the training and certification mechanism by which consultants and advisors are licensed to deliver DCAM-based assessments and to consult on the execution of the DCAM Framework. The goal of the DAP program is to verify that representatives of the DAP are fully versed in the data management principles and capabilities of DCAM.

A place where the EDM Council publishes best practice that has been collected and vetted across member Data Management practitioners.

Learn more: Knowledge Portal Tutorial

The DCAM^® User Group is for individuals who are interested in DCAM, who are DCAM trained, or who are using the Capability Framework as a guide to develop and assess the Data Management capability of their organization. EDM Council’s DCAM (Data Management Capability Assessment Model) is the industry-standard, best practice framework for developing and sustaining a comprehensive data management program. Through this User Group, members are encouraged to join, collaborate, contribute, and stay connected with the DCAM community.

The User Group is open to all members of the Council and provides access to the DCAM-based knowledge. Engaging in the User Group is your opportunity to contribute to new knowledge and provide feedback to continuously improve the published knowledge.

The DCAM User Group is a place for members to share ideas, experiences, and success stories for how Data Management best practices have been sourced and adopted in organizations. Additionally, members are invited to review and contribute feedback to the Best Practice Work Groups as they develop new knowledge. This engagement is a way for you to learn from and influence new best practices.

You can join the DCAM User group by clicking here.