Big data is a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.
Big data can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves. Current usage of the term big data generally refers to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set.
Scientists, business executives, practitioners of medicine, advertising and governments alike regularly meet difficulties with large data-sets in areas including internet searches, fintech, urban informatics, and business informatics.
Data sets grow rapidly, in part because they are increasingly gathered by numerous information-sensing Internet of Things devices such as mobile devices, aerial (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and wireless sensor networks.
The world’s technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s.
Based on an International Data Corporation (IDC) report prediction, the global data volume will grow exponentially from 4.4 zettabytes to 44 zettabytes between in the seven year span before 2020. By 2025, it’s predicted there will be 163 zettabytes of data. One question for large enterprises is determining who should own big-data initiatives that affect the entire organization.
Two major challenges with Big data are:
- How to use it wisely in the real world
- How program and project management should align with developing technical data handling abilities
Problems a project manager might run into include:
- Dealing with data growth
- Organizational resistance
- Securing big data
- Validating data
- Integrating disparate data sources
- Recruiting and retaining big data talent
- Dealing with data growth
- Generating insights in a timely manner
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Big Data For Project Managers Training, a 3-day course that teaches participants how to benefit from big data in their projects and programs. Additionally, Tonex offers more than 120 different courses in a dozen categories in Leadership training.