The Seventh Law of Data Quality by Jim Harris.
Jim’s series on the “laws” of data quality can be recommended without reservation. There are links to each one in his coverage of the seventh law.
The seventh of data quality law reads:
Determine the business impact of data quality issues BEFORE taking any corrective action in order to properly prioritize data quality improvement efforts.
I would modify that slightly to make it applicable to data issues more broadly as:
Determine the business impact of a data issue BEFORE addressing it at all.
Your data may be completely isolated in silos, but without a business purpose to be served by freeing them, why bother?
And that purpose should have a measurable ROI.
In the absence of a business purpose and a measurable ROI, keep both hands on your wallet.