Information & decisions · JNAGA perspective
How do you identify the authoritative source for a business fact?
When two reports disagree, ask how the fact was created and who can correct it before asking which dashboard looks better.
Published 25 September 2026
Define the fact in context
A label can conceal different meanings. 'Open case' might include work awaiting the customer in one team and only work currently assigned in another. Write down the event that makes a fact true, when it changes and which decisions depend on it.
The authoritative source is not necessarily the oldest or largest system. It is the place where the accountable process establishes and corrects the fact. Other systems can hold useful copies, provided their relationship to the source is understood.
Make correction possible
Identify who can challenge a value, what evidence they need and how a correction reaches the other places that use it. A record that nobody can correct confidently will lose trust even if it is technically centralised.
Timing matters too. A report may be correct as of yesterday but unsuitable for a decision that needs today's status. State the freshness and limitations of the information where it is used.
Keep the definition close to the decision
Document the meaning in language the business uses and review it when work changes. A shared definition is valuable because people can act on it, not because a data catalogue says it exists.
Imagine a customer status appears as 'active' in a sales system and 'paused' in a service tracker. Both are accurate for different purposes.
Define the question a decision-maker needs answered and which team owns that status at that moment. The solution may be two explicitly named facts, not a forced single field that obscures the distinction.