Enterprise taxonomy is generally synonymous with centralized taxonomy just as federated taxonomy is generally synonymous with decentralized taxonomy. Each model has its pros and cons. What happens when an organization needs both the efficiency and cross-searchability associated with centralized taxonomy management and the autonomy and heterogeneity associated with decentralized taxonomy management? Drawing upon real-life examples this presentation compares and contrasts the two models and then explores various hybrid solutions, which bridge the divide to combine and deliver advantages from the alternative approaches.

1. Chaos-Control!
Enterprise Management
of Federated Taxonomies
Taxonomy
Boot Camp
2012
Jim Sweeney, Product Manager
Synaptica LLC
jim.sweeney@synaptica.com

2. Rules of the Game
An enterprise taxonomy is generally synonymous with
centralized taxonomy, just as federated taxonomies are
generally synonymous with decentralized taxonomy.
Enterprise Taxonomy: Federated Taxonomies:
• Centralized • Decentralized
• Standardized Terms • Specific Terminology
• Universally applied • Conditionally applied
• Single Language • Multilingual

3. But… Rules are Made to be Broken!
What happens when we
need both the efficiency
and cross-searchability
associated with
centralized taxonomy
management and the
autonomy associated with
decentralized taxonomy
management?

4. Challenges
• How to allow autonomous and
geographically diverse business
units to use and apply their own
terminology and organizational
structure while maintaining some
kind of universal standardization?
• How to provide for successful
information retrieval from diverse
disciplines and languages across
all business assets?

5. Option A…
• In cases where it is desirable to use a single
term set but apply varying hierarchical
structures to those terms, one may use a
multiple broader / narrower relationship class
(mBT / mNT).
• The following example is taken from the TBC
2011 presentation given by Intel’s Sherry
Chang, “Hierarchies & Polyhierarchies: Is
More Better?”

6. Example

7. How we build it

8. Result
We can view either distinct
Or we can view the the Marketing
version of the hierarchy…
hierarchical structure for the
Support group.

9. Pros and Cons to Approach A
• Very effective means of organizing distinct,
parallel hierarchies using the same terms
• Simple to manage
• Limits “taxonomies” to identical terms
without differentiation for business group,
region, or language

10. Option B…
• A second strategy is to maintain each federated
taxonomy independently and then map them
together at the term or concept level.
• This method is able to accommodate multiple,
disparate taxonomies and other vocabularies
linked together via custom relationships.
• The resulting collections build out an ontology
storing unique terms, languages, and structures
as needed.

11. Example
IPTC
(International
Press
Telecommunications
Council)

12. Pros and Cons to Approach B
• Each federated taxonomy may be managed as
an independent taxonomy
• Custom relationships may link to a “master”
taxonomy and/or to one another
• Dependent vocabularies may be managed
with or without hierarchical structure
• Labor intensive to manage each taxonomy
independently

13. Option C…
Using a centralized
enterprise taxonomy as
an umbrella to cover all
concepts across the
business standardizes
results but limits the
autonomy of individual
business groups.

14. While discrete “siloed” taxonomies
serve independent groups within the
organization, they lack search
standardization.

15. Master Taxonomy manages global concepts
Mapping
relationships
to link upper
level concepts
to “siloed”
concepts
Discrete federated taxonomies to serve
individual business units

16. Pros and Cons to Approach C
• Each business taxonomy may contain different
terminology; different hierarchical structures; and
greater granularity
• When “siloed” taxonomy terms are more
granular than those in the upper taxonomy, more
specific concepts have to map upwards to
broader concepts
• This upward mapping impedes the ability to
perform searches across the information assets
of the business

17. Winning Combinations
• Striving for an Enterprise taxonomy
with common language and structure
is an important goal, but not always
possible
• Supporting variance is an important
and powerful tool
• Choose the best approach to address
your organization’s unique structure
and practices
• Maintain standards for taxonomy
development over time to avoid
further divergence

18. Questions?
Stop by and see us!

19. Thank You!
Taxonomy
Boot Camp
2012
Jim Sweeney, Product Manager
Synaptica LLC
jim.sweeney@synaptica.com