🚀 START HERE — CDMP Applied Data Management Laboratory

Meridian Commerce Group • Turn DMBOK theory into work you can see, break, repair, explain and remember

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Purpose

This is the hands-on companion to the CDMP DMBOK Mastery Lab. The chapter guides remain the source-grounded theory system; this program gives that theory a living company, real data structures, SQL/Python/database work, management artifacts, incidents, and inspectable evidence.

How 00A and 00B work together

The DMBOK Mastery system answers: What does DAMA mean, what must I distinguish, and how might I reason about it?

The Applied Laboratory answers: What does this look and feel like when an organization actually has the problem?

You do not replace reading with labs. Deliberately alternate theory, technology skill-building, application, explanation, and exam-oriented retrieval.

Learn the DMBOK chapter with the existing chapter package.
Train only the technology prerequisites required for upcoming applied work.
Enter the Meridian scenario and predict what you expect to find before touching a tool.
Do the lab and capture evidence: SQL, screenshots, diagrams, decision records, metrics, or documents.
Break or diagnose something when the lab calls for it, then repair it.
Rebuild the important part without following the original script line by line.
Complete the DMBOK Debrief: explain what the lab demonstrated, what nearby concept could be confused with it, and how DMBOK terminology maps to what you observed.

Three rules that protect the learning

🧠 Rule 1 — Understand before script

A supplied script is scaffolding, not the lesson. Important scripts must be read, explained, modified, and eventually rebuilt in a smaller form from a blank editor.

📘 Rule 2 — DMBOK controls chapter meaning

A chapter lab is not finalized until the controlling chapter PDF has been read. Lab implementation details may be original, but DAMA concepts, terminology, roles, processes, and claims come from the controlling chapter.

🛑 Rule 3 — Do not become a different professional by accident

The Technology Training & Competency Roadmap targets practical Data Management/Data Governance fluency. It deliberately stops before production DBA administration, advanced software engineering, complex cloud operations, distributed platform engineering, or data-science modeling unless a later learning goal explicitly requires it.

Main technology stack

Technology	Why it is in the program	Target depth
SQL	Interrogate, validate, reconcile, and reshape structured data.	Strong working fluency.
PostgreSQL	Real relational DBMS for schemas, tables, keys, constraints, roles, views, transactions, and warehouse structures.	Practical Data Management user/builder; not production DBA.
DBeaver	Visual database workbench for exploring objects/metadata, writing SQL, and inspecting results.	Strong everyday workbench fluency.
Python	Repeatable file handling, data generation, profiling, validation, and automation.	Practical scripting fluency.
pandas	Tabular cleaning, reconciliation, profiling, and file/database interchange.	Strong working fluency for Data Management tasks.
Git	Version history and evidence discipline for SQL, Python, definitions, and lab assets.	Strong project basics.
VS Code + PowerShell	Environment for scripts, folders, commands, and reproducible project work.	Comfortable practical literacy.
Later tools	DuckDB, Metabase, OpenMetadata, and API/Postman work enter only when a chapter benefits.	Targeted, chapter-driven fluency.

The current career-platform layer additionally uses Microsoft Purview Data Governance as the primary career specialization, Collibra as secondary portability, and other tools only when employer/job evidence justifies them. The technology roadmap controls timing and depth.

Meridian Commerce Group in one paragraph

Meridian Commerce Group, Inc. (MCG) is a fictional omnichannel retail/e-commerce company with stores, an online channel, fulfillment operations, suppliers, customer service, and analytics. It is intentionally messy: systems disagree about customers and products; definitions differ; Data Quality defects appear; transformations are not always documented; sensitive attributes need protection; reports can be hard to trace; reference lists drift; documents have retention questions; and governance/accountability are incomplete. Every defect is synthetic and exists so a DMBOK discipline has something tangible to solve.

When you are “done” with a lab

You can explain the business problem before naming the tool.
You can explain the relevant DMBOK concept in DAMA terminology.
You can perform the core technical or management task with decreasing reliance on the tutorial.
You can interpret the output rather than merely produce it.
You have evidence another person could inspect.
You can state what would go wrong if the discipline/control were absent.
You can distinguish the lab concept from at least one nearby concept.
You can answer a short scenario/retrieval question after the lab without reopening instructions.

Where to go next

Primary execution route = Main 00C. Main 00 is only the doorway. For normal study, open the 00C Execution Checklist, find the first unfinished Sequence, then open the matching 00C manual card.

At the present repository boundary, only Chapter 1 has been substantively built. Chapters 2–17 are USER-DEFERRED until deliberately started; do not interpret the curriculum maps or placeholder/source hubs as instructions to build them now.

00B structure

Area	Use it for
01 — Program Curriculum & Roadmaps	Future chapter/lab curriculum map and program roadmaps; not authorization to build deferred chapters.
02 — Meridian Company & Casebook	Company, processes, systems, roles, domains, scenarios, defects.
03 — Technology Training & Competency Roadmap	What technology to learn, why, depth, readiness, stopping boundary.
04 — Lab Environment, Data & Setup	Local setup, synthetic source data, scripts, diagrams, evidence, rebuild material.
05 — Applied Labs	Current Chapter 1 lab plus source-gated cross-chapter capstone roadmap.
Applied Lab Internal Control	Active Master Program Guide plus execution/evidence/QC standard.
06 — Evidence, Portfolio, Trackers & Templates	Evidence journal, templates, registers, master tracker.
99 — Reference Sources & Borrowed Patterns	Reference material and structural patterns without changing DMBOK/Meridian authority.