Description:
This application guide presents a scalable step-by-step self-assessment process that assists agencies and organizations with understanding whether their data resources provide the information necessary to support business needs. The assessment focuses on data availability, quality, and usability to examine the effectiveness of collecting and transforming data into information that supports business functions as well as maintaining accurate and complete data.
The guide demonstrates how to prepare resources and assemble staff for the assessment process, conduct an assessment, and develop an action plan based on the results of the assessment. Three spreadsheet tools are provided to implement the assessment process. Assessments can provide an overview of the whole agency to determine its overall data management capability or focus on one type of data, business area, or groups of business functions to determine data value in the focus areas. The guide presents an inventory of typical datasets and business areas at State Departments of Transportation (DOT) in a DOT Data Program Inventory.
A five-level maturity scale provides the basis for the assessment, accompanied by lists of possible areas for improvement and a catalog of potential specific data improvements.
Tool Type:
Application Guide
Owner Source:
organization
Sponsor/Owner:
- National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)
Published:
Availability:
The application guide and spreadsheet tools are free of charge at the following link: National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 814: Data to Support Transportation Agency Business Needs: A Self-Assessment Guide
Disclaimer:
This information is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained herein. This information does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturer's names appear in this information only because they are considered essential to the objective of this publication.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations, and translations thereof, expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Highway Administration.