Choose a lineage granularity that fits your use case, organization maturity, and maintenance capacity.
Why is this important?
Lineage is a powerful tool for understanding and ownership, for both functional and technical users.
However, when we start to establish the lineage of objects, we face the following question: what granularity should we achieve?
The answer is very important. It depends very strongly on:
- The selected use case, in particular the target audience
- Constraints: the maturity of the organization, maintenance capacities, etc.
The ability to deliver adequate lineage is however essential for many projects. It allows you, in particular, to:
- Understand data flows and uses
- Identify dependencies
- Simplify users' appropriation of data themes
What you need to know before you start
- "Presentation of the impact analysis module"
Where to start
Lineage construction depends on several factors. Here are a few:
- The selected use case: undoubtedly the most important. A BI-oriented project will need a high level of granularity, especially on technical objects, which is not necessarily the case for a governance project, which will instead focus on functional modules.
- The maturity of the organization: the more mature the organization is in terms of data management, the finer the granularity can be.
- Maintenance capabilities: very fine granularity implies high construction and maintenance costs. This question is also related to maturity: significant maturity generally allows strong maintenance capabilities.
Let's take two extremes as an example:
- A complete lineage including detailed field-to-field links with details of the processing units.
- A simple lineage with links between large entities and functional objects.
These two lineages naturally meet different needs.
| Complete lineage | Simple lineage | |
|---|---|---|
| Need | Need for detail to document and collaborate on work in progress. It allows you to: integrate newcomers more easily; identify management responsibilities; functionally model my objects to better discuss with functional counterparts. | Need for awareness and acculturation around data. It allows you to answer questions such as: What is the meaning of my data? What is their origin? Who to ask? Which reports can be of interest? |
| Target audience | Technical profile | Business professional profile |
| Positive points | In-depth understanding of data flows and transformations; can serve as a basis for collaboration between technical users. | Quick ownership of the subject; limited risk of error; simple construction and low maintenance. |
| Negative points | Complex construction; maintenance costs; complex to understand for functional users. | Low added value for technical users; the representation loses value over time and as objects are mapped: everything points to the same level. |
How to go further
The reflection on lineage granularity can be deepened with the notion of workspace:
- Workspaces with functionally oriented lineages, allowing a better appropriation of the subject
- More complete workspaces for technical users