It cropped up again last week; the dreaded statement from a BI professional

We must have a single version of the truth…

Anyone working in IT / BI / decision support / enterprise reporting / analytics etc. for more than a couple of months will have heard this, and for those of us working in the field for 20+ years we may wince slightly and wish that we had a pound for every time…

For many years I went along with the idea, and of course the principle is an enticing and appealing one. No-one wants to spend minutes, let alone hours, arguing with colleagues as to who has “the correct numbers” – it would be far more convenient if everyone adhered to the same definition of every business term, listed all their caveats and stuck to the same KPI calculations… as I’m sure we would all welcome free energy, a cure for all cancers and…