What we learned from implementing a business glossary
A business glossary is the foundation that creates a common understanding of your organization’s vocabulary and data. While the concept isn’t complex, the implementation can be daunting. Here are the key lessons we’ve learned while implementing business glossary use cases for our clients.
Common Business Glossary Challenges
Once you understand the value of a glossary, the questions start piling up:
- Where do we start?
- Who will own and maintain it?
- How do we store different terms?
- How do we create excitement throughout the organization?
Getting key stakeholders on board is crucial—they are the drivers of your glossary. However, with so many people involved, it’s easy to lose the "big picture." Here is how we tackle those challenges.
Defining Your Business Terms: Where to Start?
The good news: you probably don’t have to start from scratch. Various teams likely already have descriptions of their terms, or you can look at external sources (like a key supplier) as a baseline.
Our Golden Rule: Start small and build gradually. Tackle it department by department, division by division, or use case by use case.
Leverage Existing Projects
A business glossary doesn't have to be a standalone project. It’s often better to use a larger initiative as leverage. If you are implementing a new BI tool, a data warehouse, or a data catalog, that is the perfect time to define the terms you encounter.
Set the Standard Early
Before documenting, create definition guidelines and naming conventions. This ensures consistency across departments. You should also decide on the "granularity" of your terms—do you need to define a specific column in a database, or a high-level business concept?
Choose the Right Tool
A good tool is the cornerstone of data governance. Whether you use an internal portal or a dedicated platform like Collibra, the goal is clear: easy access, clear ownership, and the ability for the organization to contribute.
How to Embed Your Business Glossary
A glossary is the cure for miscommunication, allowing Business, IT, HR, and Legal to finally speak the same language. To make it stick, the glossary needs to "live and breathe" within the organization.
- Crowdsource Like Wikipedia: Allow anyone to propose terms, but design an approval and recertification process to ensure accuracy.
- Iterative Design: Don't try to gather requirements for the whole company at once. Get requirements from your immediate stakeholders and refine your processes as you onboard new teams.
- Assign Ownership: People are more engaged when they are responsible for something. Assigning ownership at the term or category level creates trust and provides "promoters" for the program.
Analyze and Visualize: Seeing the Forest for the Trees
As glossaries grow, duplicates and synonyms are inevitable. One department might call it "Client ID" while another calls it "Account Number," even though they refer to the same physical data field.
- Map Synonyms: Don't panic when duplicates appear—it means your glossary is being used! Use a tool that can consolidate these and spot duplicates (some even use Machine Learning to help).
- Track KPIs: Monitor the health of your glossary from day one.
- Content Status: How many terms are new vs. approved vs. obsolete?
- Engagement: What are the most searched terms? How are users navigating to them?
Where to go from here?
You now have the roadmap for a successful business glossary. If you still need a hand getting the engine started, we’re here to help.
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