Data Management and Visibility

So I work underneath the engineering department kind of blanketed underneath configuration management and I do data management. People ask me what on earth that is or if I am a secretary or if I work for the president. None of the above. As a data manager, I take data items that specific programs send to me, i.e. the team gives me a document or report that they generate such as financials, risk, obsolescence, test reports, master schedules, weekly program reports, metrics, etc. I then take these said reports and submit them into a master supplier portal system depending on the program and submit it to the customer. My monthly schedule is all over the place. Some days I am barely gasping for air and time seems to slip away, and it’s 4 o’clock already. Other days, I am picking my eyeballs out because I am all caught up, and it’s only 10am, and the doc owner still isn’t done with their work. It’s no picnic waiting on someone for their input and review, especially if it’s contracts or program office, which both parties are extremely busy, so sit tight, because it will be awhile.  A lot of people at the company don’t even know data managers exist! Some feel like we don’t do much except submit an item that our customer just checks the box and says we did it. It’s very sad, that what I do, does not seem to get much recognition, or back pats, but then push comes to shove and your manager hears from Program Office how well you are doing, and somehow some way it feels like all this invisibility isn’t so bad. What I do… well it’s a lot. I work on seven different programs, all with a specific number of data items. Program office can be absent minded as is the team, so I create a tracking sheet that manages each project and specific listed task and doc owner and remind them on a regular consistent basis when things are due. If that doesn’t work and emails are ignored, which is quite common, I go and leave notes on their desk, and or find them in person, explaining, whether it’s on their time or mine, that data item will go out on time, or it’s considered late. We deal with angry suppliers and customers, when everyone else gets to scoot along without so much as a glance on something they didn’t take responsibility for. People wonder why I hit the gym after work, or try to make evening events during the week when I take my laptop home or why I prefer to read a book, eat some popcorn, hit the spa, or sleep after that. Well, it’s because data management although a great job, is also tedious, and repetitive it seems. Every so often you get the people bugging you and saying comments that really get you a tad heated. I take those data items after submission, record them on tracking, then implement them into a system called Team Center, which is a massive database of every record you can imagine. On top of these duties,  I am an administrator for giving people access to systems, and team drives, and a bunch of other can’t discuss tasks. What is irritating is not only to people confuse configuration management and data management, they don’t even realize, we are the people who clean up the details others miss or don’t care to pay attention to. When I was in college, as in English major that is how it went, and it can be rough, but if we want to make a program look good, we do everything we can to make a document what it needs to be. Sure some say it’s a stepping stone position, and it probably can be, but I like to think data management is working to make a strong relationship with the customer as well as with the team and deliver quality product on time. Cheesy, but that’s all I have to say about that. Miss Moxie signing off on this running off topic discussion.