What is the data life cycle?
Huge amounts of data can make your PC MAAD.
- Plan: Decide what kind of data is needed, how it will be managed, and who will be responsible for it.
- Capture: Collect or bring in data from a variety of different sources. Custom survey, demographics.
- Manage: Care for and maintain the data. This includes determining how and where it is stored and the tools used to do so.
- Analyze: Use the data to solve problems, make decisions, and support business goals.
- Archive: Keep relevant data stored for long-term and future reference.
- Destroy: Remove data from storage and delete any shared copies of the data.
Do not confuse the six stages of the data life cycle (Plan, Capture, Manage, Analyze, Archive, and Destroy) with the six phases of the data analysis life cycle (Ask, Prepare, Process, Analyze, Share, and Act). They shouldn’t be used or referred to interchangeably. Government, finance, and education institutions can view data life cycles a little differently and they do not all have the exact same steps.
Govern how data is handled so that it is accurate, secure, and available to meet your organization’s needs.
Here are the 8 steps in the data life cycle according to Harvard Business School Online. Steps 2, 3 and 4 look similar to the ETL steps of extract, transform and load.
- Generation
- Collect
- Processing
- Storage
- Management
- Analysis
- Visualization
- Interpretation