How would you improve adoption of Atlan's business glossary by domain owners?

Introduction

A business glossary is the part of a data catalogue that turns technical data into shared business language. In Atlan, glossary terms like "Active Customer", "Net Revenue" or "Churn" carry a definition, an owner, related terms and links to the tables, columns, dashboards and metrics that implement them. A good glossary ends arguments about numbers. A neglected glossary becomes a graveyard of half-written definitions that nobody trusts.

The question asks how to improve adoption of Atlan's business glossary by domain owners: the people in finance, sales, marketing or product who are supposed to define and maintain terms for their domain. In most companies, these owners are busy, are not data specialists, and see glossary work as a chore assigned by the data team. Without them, the glossary fails.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (5 mins)

• Looking at the product context, how are glossary terms created today: by the data team, by domain owners, or imported?

• Hypothetical answer: Mostly created by the data governance team, then assigned to domain owners to review and own.
• Impact: Owners inherit work they did not ask for.

• Considering user behaviour, what share of terms have an active owner who updated them in the last six months?

• Hypothetical answer: Around 30% at a typical enterprise customer.
• Impact: Staleness is the core symptom.

• Examining external factors, are domain owners measured on data quality or governance goals?

• Hypothetical answer: Rarely; data mesh programmes are starting to add "data product owner" responsibilities.
• Impact: Incentives must come from the product's usefulness or organisational programmes.

• Thinking about company alignment, what does Atlan want: glossary coverage or glossary usage?

• Hypothetical answer: Usage: terms that are viewed and linked to assets, because that shows value and drives renewal.
• Impact: We will optimise for active, used terms rather than term count.