Understanding your Organisation’s Data Footprint
Socrates almost 2,500 years ago defined the beginning of W isdom to be the definition of terms. Yet, we rarely pay more than a cursory glance at this most critical pearl of wisdom. And if we do ask for inventories of terms and definitions, we often use the wrong terms to express exactly what we require. I experience this shortcoming regularly when I see that there is a data governance related requirement stating the need for a data catalogue. Or was that a data glossary? Or perhaps a data dictionary? The first thing I do when I see this requirement is to add a note to “Confirm understanding”. Not everybody understands what the differences between these terms are and what they are asking for. The objective of this blog is to briefly describe the purpose and content of each term, who the producers and consumers of each one are and also, what the focus of each is. In essence, business and data glossaries, data dictionaries, and data catalogues overcome the chaotic and difficult task to ab...
