The rush to produce something, anything, which can address Principle 4 – Completeness, takes you through uncharted territory. There will be outdated logical models, inconsistent architectures, compromises on design and the actual deliverable – all easy to remediate if time permits BUT the lure of a short cut, a secret passage, that snake oil to say Stated Lineage is actually the truth is all too appealing to some (and the sellers are plentiful). Once you sip the Snake Oil, others will follow suit, onward and upwards in a belief it is the cure-all, the quick win, the truth.

When you start to tackle Principle 7 through 9, you realise the Snake Oil was just well, Snake Oil and remediation is in order.

Captured lineage is the only way.

A repeatable, consistent process to electronically extract and obtain the data in’s and out’s with the processing in-between and compute the dependency analysis. It has to work for the variety of data stores, coding languages and proprietary vendor applications that you’ve either built or acquired over the years. It means building strong relationships with internal and external customers to ensure speedy resolution of the captured nuances. It drives good data and application governance. It deals with the true reality and sets a solid, realistic foundation for the future.

Captured lineage is hard – but risk is everybody’s business, isn’t it? 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bcbs-239-stated-lineage-snake-oil-chris-day-