I talk frequently about "weeding the garden," the idea that proactively managing your data, consistently, over time, is a better practice than trying to clean up the data in one big effort once every couple of years.

But beyond the data itself, weeding the garden should also include making sure all the things around the "weeds" are cleaned up, too. I'm referring to things like fields and data points that are no longer used, redundant queries and reports, and business processes that are outdated or no longer useful.

The bad data are the weeds themselves. The fields, queries and reports, and business processes are the gardens that the weeds are growing in.

So while you're weeding, make sure you check the rest of the garden and clean up anything that might contribute to the proliferation of those weeds.

Happy gardening!