Involve the Business in the Definition, Production, and Use of Tool He counsels businesses to “tell when there is a lack of resources, when the process is breaking, and what is the needed time frame to document all of this information,” and then address these to get Data Governance planning back on track.Ģ. Seiner emphasized knowing data that adds “specific value to the organization throughĬollecting information about business terms and then storing them physically.” Identifying CDE and following a formal governance plan may not always be smooth. CDE may come from multiple data dictionaries, multiple places-perhaps even data reported on the company’s dashboards.” Often business directs the work in collecting and deciding which CDE to use. Seiner’s corollary to this is: Be sure to pick data that is most meaningful to the organization, because there tends to be so much data it would be “unthinkable to record metadata for every single data element in the organization.” He called this kind of data Common or Critical Data Elements (CDE). Evaluate how well the contents were formally governed,” said Seiner. “Have a plan that can be demonstrated and include specific details, such as who will collect the information, what is the process and level of commitment within the organization. Given Seiner’s background on dictionaries versus glossaries, he moved into his four recommendations.įour Secrets of Successful Business Glossaries Data Dictionaries Seiner concluded from his analysis that business must be involved in glossary and dictionary development (the second of Bob’s secrets). But IT has the responsibility to put it there.” While business terminology focused, said Seiner, “data dictionaries link these concepts specifically to the metadata about the data or the information in the catalog.” Collecting or connecting business glossary terminology to data dictionary information may happen, and “a data dictionary typically has a business definition in it. to document a specific set of data within an application, Data Warehouse or Data Lake). In contrast: A data dictionary is created for specific purpose (e.g. There may be multiple usages, but often those usages don’t conflict with the single definition in the business glossary.” This requires defining terminology used by the business. This means each business term within the business glossary needs a unique name, a single definition, a single value set, a single set of business rules, an authoritative source. “The prime directive of the business glossary is to eliminate semantic confusion across the enterprise. So, the differences between the two has to do with who’s taking care of it, and who’s maintaining it, and who the Stewards are of that metadata.”Įxpanding further, he cited Lowell Fryman: Information Technology (IT) or the people that own the systems take on responsibility for data dictionaries. “The business creates, maintains, and owns the business glossaries. In addition to grasping Data Governance and Data Stewardship, managers need to understand the major differences, highlighted by Seiner, between a business glossary and a data dictionary. That comes down to how companies implement Data Governance and apply it through Data Stewards.”īusinesses Own Glossaries and IT Owns Data Dictionaries This means “applying governance to existing processes rather than redefining all the processes.” But in any Data Governance style, he emphasized, “organizations want to execute and enforce authority. Data Governance covers “the execution and enforcement of authority over the management of data and data related resources.” When Seiner spoke of data-related resources, he meant the metadata to be contained in the business glossary and/or data dictionary “or even the DBM’s catalog.” According to Seiner, Data Stewardship means “the formalization of accountability over the management of data, and the data related resources.” Data Stewardship encompasses everybody, as “people have a relationship to the data, just as they have a relationship to the metadata.” As a result, accountability of these people needs to be formalized to capture and record the best possible metadata.įormal accountability comes in many flavors, but Seiner prefers the Non-Invasive Approach™. It Starts with Data Governance and Data Stewardshipīob Seiner believes creating a good data dictionary or business glossary must start with good definitions of Data Governance and Data Stewardship.
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