A new training course from CMstat will provide an introduction to the Principles of Applied GEIA859 Enterprise Data Management (DM) with emphasis on what the practical application of DM truly entails for a product, project, program, or enterprise. Students will gain an understanding of DM functions and how they work in concert to enable best-in-class management, identification, storage, protection and access control of all types of data.

From my 35 years of experience working for Aerospace & Defense contractors I have witnessed that some experienced engineers and program managers truly understand, and thus appreciate, the importance of Configuration Management and Data Management (CMDM) in their organizations. Yet, others still do not respect the CMDM function for a myriad of reasons I have encountered over the years. Some of these concerns are quite reasonable, while others not so much.

There are numerous contributing factors which have caused the process of managing CDRLs (and SDRLs) to become not only a more arduous task, but at the same time increasingly important to the bottom-line performance of a DoD program or profitability of a supplier’s contract. Thankfully, as the efficient handling of CDRLs has become more demanding to orchestrate, best practices (BP) have emerged over recent years from a number of contractors, government agencies, industry associations, and CDRL data management software tool providers like CMstat.

Once upon a time, the process of managing Contract Data Requirement Lists (CDRL) and Subcontract Data Requirement Lists (SDRL) in support of government and commercial contracts in aerospace and defense was simple enough that data managers and project planners could perform most of what was required using spreadsheets.