Data valuesDAMA: 60

Volatility

The degree to which data values change over time.

Created: 10/30/2025
Business Impact
Positive Impacts
  • •Accurate reflection of highly dynamic data environments where change is frequent and expected.
  • •Ability to track and analyze rapid changes for time-sensitive decision making.
  • •Systems designed to handle high change rates can maintain accuracy and currency.
  • •Understanding data volatility helps in designing appropriate data refresh and validation strategies.
Negative Impacts (if poor quality)
  • •Difficulty in maintaining data accuracy and currency if data changes faster than update processes can cope.
  • •Increased risk of decisions based on stale data in highly dynamic environments.
  • •Higher data management overhead to track and reconcile frequent changes.
  • •Instability in reports or analyses if based on constantly shifting, unmanaged volatile data.
Technical Description

%

Examples
Good quality vs poor quality indicators
Good Quality Examples

Logistics: Reference data like ISO country codes or port UN/LOCODEs are very stable and change extremely infrequently, making them reliable for long-term use.

Stock Market: Historical end-of-day stock prices are static once the trading day is closed and verified.

Product Catalog: Core product attributes like 'Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) ID' for a chemical product are non-volatile once established.

Poor Quality Examples

Logistics: Customer contact information (e.g., primary contact person, phone number for a shipping company) changes frequently, but the update process for the master data is slow and manual, leading to many outdated records.

Stock Market: Real-time stock prices are highly volatile, changing many times per second, requiring very frequent updates for accurate trading systems.

Product Catalog: Product prices in a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry change weekly due to promotions, but the pricing system is only updated monthly.

Local Network
Quick Stats
Dependent KPIs0
Improvement Standards0
CategoryData values
API Access
GET /api/dq-dimensions/c251eff0-e22b-40ec-ade6-951de6487094