TxM 034 Section 3.7 There ARE visible differences in quality of taxonomies Created by James on 7/3/2013 2:30:33 PM
Recently I made the assertion that a particular taxonomy was "a 0 or 1 out of 10" as a quality rating.
One of the people in the meeting challenged me as to whether it was possible to rate configuration data.
It is my assertion that this is categorically so, refer to the section on "What is NOT a Strategic Engineered Precision Taxonomy?" in the Taxonomy Handbook for some really weak examples.
Such a rating is inherent in the diagram below which summarizes the relationship between Precision and Value:
Following is a rating scale from 0 to 10 out of 10 where 0 = absolutely no precision, could not be worse and 10 = best in the world, could not be better:
0. Abysmal -- could not be worse
I once saw a list that I would classify as a zero, there was absolutely no logic whatsoever. Characteristics of such a list include assets, liabilities, income and expenditure all jumbled together, highly variable granularity from very coarse large bins to very fine bins, ambiguous wording, child and parent elements on the same level, messy capitalization and spelling, duplication of items, totally devoid of logic, totally lacking semantic precision, codes are meaningless.
With such a list it is extremely difficult to produce even the most elementary report – in one case a lady with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and five years post graduate experience was unable to produce a reliable income statement after trying for six months. In the same organization the senior bookkeeper took six months to produce a list of 16 pages of accounts out of an original list of 25 pages where the accounts removed were either not applicable, redundant or in some other way inappropriate. A portion of this item is shown below.
1. Extremely weak
Slightly better than above but not materially different from a practical point of view.
2.
3. Very weak
Slightly better than above. Following is an example of a Chart of Accounts that I would rate at 2 to 3 out of 10:
This list is only classified as a 3/10 because it is possible to produce an even bigger mess.
4.
5. Weak
6.
7. Mediocre – some elements of precision taxonomies but inconsistent and not fully functional
8.
9. Very strong – limited deviation from standard – the point at which real value starts to be unlocked in the long term
10. World class – exceptional
Fully compliant with the SEPT standards presented in the JAR&A Taxonomy Manual. Developed by a senior taxonomist in close consultation with executive and senior management.
The following Chart of Accounts is probably about a 9.5/10 – there is some room for improvement but it is very close to the standard that I regard as essential.
It is vital to understand that the total cost of ownership of the Chart of Accounts in the figure above is WAY LOWER than the total cost of ownership for the list categorized as a 3/10 – I hope from sober consideration of the two lists you will be able to see the difference.
In fact, the total cost of ownership drops as dramatically with precision as the value increases.
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