From "single source of truth" to single story of truth...

Single source of truth...  I used to love this term. As a problem-solver, you love the idea of having access to a single source of truth. That all encompassing, easy to access, reliable report or dashboard that you could look at and that will be the only fact you would ever need to solve the problem at hand. The premise is elusive but in reality I've never seen a team, a function or an organization to be that magical source of truth!

So recently I actually believe in the single story of truth... regardless of where you get your data, you need to be able to tell a story that helps you shape the truth. I'm not naive to believe that there is only one story of truth but you need many sources of truth to be able to shape the truth you are aspiring to. 

​Don't aspire to become or have access to a single source of truth! use all sources of data, to shape your single story of truth! This might actually end the fight between IT, Data Sciences team, Analytics team, Strategy team(s) and many other teams who aspire to be the single source of truth! Just give us the data you have access to in a reliable format and we will be grateful to you forever!