Abstract: A business method and data structure are provided for reducing non-value-added data activity across a plurality of distributed business departments. The business method comprises populating a data structure with data sets generated at each of the plurality of distributed business departments, eliminating data gaps, duplications and inconsistencies within the data structure, defining access, ownership, management, data source, data control and data dependencies attributes for each data set within the data structure, aligning each of the distributed business departments” business processes and corresponding data requirements to the data structure data sets based on the attributes defined for each data set, and updating the alignment in response to changes in the business processes and corresponding data requirements of the plurality of business departments as well as changes in the attributes defined for each data set.