Pareto analysis is the appropriate technique because it identifies the relatively small number of causes responsible for a large proportion of observed problems.

The team should arrange defect categories in descending order by frequency or business impact and calculate their cumulative contribution. If four categories account for 78% of complaints, prioritizing those categories is likely to generate substantially greater benefit than spreading equal effort across all twenty.

The value of Pareto analysis in Data Quality is not that every problem follows an exact 80/20 relationship. Rather, it provides an evidence-based mechanism for focusing scarce remediation resources on the defect classes that generate the most significant outcomes.

Frequency should not be the only prioritization criterion. A rare defect could produce severe regulatory, safety, financial, or reputational consequences. Governance should therefore combine volume analysis with business impact and risk.

Once priority defects are selected, the team should perform root-cause analysis and introduce preventive controls instead of merely fixing individual records.

Reference Topics: DAMA-DMBOK2 Chapter 13 — Statistical Quality Tools; Pareto Analysis; Issue Prioritization; Business Impact; Root-Cause Remediation.

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