Repository–Build Then Buy

I have long contended that uninformed organizations (organizations that are not very data literate) should not directly engage repository vendors. The knowledge gap is to substantial. In 40 years of practice, I have not seen a productive conversation. Sometime organizations purchase these products but most incur at least a five-year maturity curve towards any neutral ROI. 

Instead, toolkits have matured sufficiently that organizations can now build working and useful repositories (business glossary, catalog, encyclopedia, data dictionary, and other names, etc.  See https://www.analytics8.com/blog/data-dictionary-vs-data-catalog-vs-business-glossary for more confusion of terms.)

These product categories have more similarities than differences.  If you have multiple instances, you have a sync challenge.   Net net is that all definitional material must be focused on business terms maintained for organizational use.  So the question of acquiring this organizational capability becomes one of appropriately timing the investment.  Should the organization employ lots of professional to install a complex technology (a technology project).  Or should the organization self-organize to begin rolling low cost functionality in a simultaneous attempt to obtain business value and formally codify the organizational requirements.  

The program below, while quite dated, illustrates an approach to this build then buy approach.  Slides from this presentation can be downloaded here.


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