For years, analytics consumers have struggled to explain the data behind a metric, KPI, or calculation. And this problem has only been exacerbated as data has become more distributed and fragmented, not just within the organization but outside it, too. It hasn’t happened (and it never will), but as a thought experiment: Imagine if all the data were together in one place. We’d still never have a single version of the truth – because data changes in nanoseconds and because there are constantly new variables that need to be accounted for.
Today, as more distributed data architectures emerge (see Trend #10), a critical component is data observability through augmented data management with data lineage, impact analysis, and governance.
