Build a Glossary

This article outlines best practices and recommendations to help you create an effective glossary for your data catalog.

Why build a glossary?

By creating a structured glossary of terms, you can:

Ensure consistent understanding and reduce ambiguity across teams.
Improve searchability and navigation in your catalog.
Support metadata enrichment and data governance processes.
Facilitate prioritization, access control, reporting, and analytics.

Terms can also serve as a tool for data quality evaluation by linking DQ rules to your data.

Planning your glossary: a step-by-step approach

Before you start creating terms, take time to plan your glossary to ensure it remains organized, scalable, and useful.

This differs between organizations, but here are some points to consider.

Step 1: Define the scope

Determine what types of terms to include (for example, business concepts, data domains, technical terms, metrics). You can also use terms to tag sensitive data as well as data relevant for data protection and other security regulations like GDPR.
Prioritize strategically:
- Building a glossary can feel overwhelming with many variables to consider. To get momentum going, focus first on frequently used or commonly misunderstood terms.
  
  You don’t need to start from scratch: look at the terms your teams already use in their daily work, existing metadata in your systems, or even old glossaries stored in spreadsheets.
- Include core business concepts that appear in multiple systems. These are often the terms that cause the most confusion across departments and provide the highest value when standardized.
- Add terms important for regulatory compliance. Consider bringing in relevant industry glossaries or using AI to suggest compliance-related terminology based on your business domain.
- Document organization-specific terminology that might not be obvious to newcomers. Focus on terms that reflect how your business actually speaks rather than trying to create perfect definitions no one really uses.

Start with a manageable scope. You can expand your glossary over time as your governance practices mature.

Remember, a glossary that feels natural and useful will get adopted faster than one that feels like an additional obstacle.

Step 2: Structure your terms

Keep definitions practical and business-focused rather than academic — remember, the goal is usefulness, not perfection.

Each term in your glossary should include:

A clear, concise definition.

Use Gen AI to fix grammar and improve clarity in term descriptions.
Context explaining when and how the term is used.
Relationships to other terms, especially for complex taxonomies (synonyms, parent/child terms, related concepts).

Create a standard template to ensure consistency across all terms in your glossary.

Step 3: Identify stakeholders and responsibilities

Start with a small, committed group rather than trying to get everyone involved from day one. You can expand participation as the glossary proves its value.

Engage subject matter experts for accurate definitions.
Include representatives from different departments for broader coverage. Clearly define who will:
- Submit new terms.
- Review definitions for accuracy.
- Approve terms for publication.
- Maintain the glossary over time.

Step 4: Establish governance processes

Keep governance lightweight and responsive — overly rigid processes can undermine adoption faster than no governance at all. Business language changes quickly, so your governance should enable updates, not block them.

Create workflows for submitting, reviewing, and approving new terms.
Set a schedule for regular reviews and updates.
Document how to handle term modifications and deprecations.

Use Stewardship to facilitate term governance.

Best practices for glossary success

A well-structured glossary helps your team members quickly find and apply the correct terms. Here are some tips to help you get started.

Standardize definitions

Use plain language whenever possible.
Keep term names and other fields consistent across related terms.
Avoid circular definitions. Connect relevant terms through hierarchies instead.
Include examples where helpful to illustrate correct usage.

Ensure adoption and maintenance

Integrate the glossary into everyday workflows.
Provide training on how to use and contribute to the glossary.
Regularly review and update terms, especially in rapidly changing domains.
Start simple but plan for growth—a glossary is never truly "finished."

It’s good practice to make your glossary widely accessible across the company. This supports shared terminology, better collaboration, and stronger data literacy.

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