Organizing your project with a Data Management Plan

When working on any type of data project, planning ahead is a crucial step.  Before starting in on a project, it’s important to think through as many of the details as possible so you can budget enough time and resources to accomplish all of the objectives.  As a matter of fact, some organizations and government entities require a Data Management Plan (“DMP”) to be in place in all of their projects.

A DMP is a formal document that describes the data and what your team will do with it during and after the data project.  Many organizations and agencies require one, and each entity has specific requirements for their DMPs.

DMPs can be created in just a simple readme.txt file, or can be as detailed as DMPs tailored to specific disciplines using online templates such as DMPTool.org.  The DMPTool is designed to help create ready-to-use data management plans.