Naming Conventions Enable Scalable Data

Data management is akin to navigating a labyrinth. Every turn you and your team make, every choice you take, impacts the quality of the data you collect and, consequently, the decisions you make and the insights you can uncover in the future.

Priority level: high. This is a top priority. the longer you wait, the dirtier the data gets and the more expensive to clean up.

In this maze, the choice between consistent naming with a pre-determined, controlled vocabulary (picklists or dropdown) versus free-form data entry is a pivotal one impacting automation of insights. This choice is critical as it affects all the data you collect, not just today but also in the future. If you have consistent naming in place today aligned with strategy, then in the future you can easily see shifts and trends across campaigns as the data accumulates through time. This enables people to make decisions in real-time and pivot quickly.

It’s worth pointing out a few things about controlled terms/drop downs beforecomparing the two approaches.

1. Always use dropdowns/the same spellings for fields like state and country.
2. For more abstract fields, like campaigns and content, only control what you need to track, e.g. align this to strategy.
1. Naming data is relevant for all systems — this means your excel files, your financial system, your CRM, your email program, your third party activities, your inventory program, your customer-facing content, your project mangement collaboration system (TEAMS, Monday Morning, etc.) and so on. So if your strategy is new customer acquisition in a particular vertical, it’s in your best interest to identify a short name for those two objectives and apply them whenever in use across your systems. If for say you wanted to bring in new customers for landscaping businesses, then it would make sense to establish a naming practice, say nca-land when creating campaigns targetting new customers for landscaping businesses and be sure to use that in entering your costs and advertising fees in addition to your CRM and other activities.

Let’s discuss the consequences of each, and appropriate applications of each to help you decide which is the best fit for your data management strategy.

What Are Controlled Vocabulary and Picklists?

Controlled vocabulary refers to a predefined set of terms used to maintain consistency in data entry. Picklists are drop-down menus that restrict users to selecting only from these predefined options, ensuring accuracy. 

The choices need to align with the company strategy to be useful. Campaign names, content names, and so on. If you want to measure how various industries engage with your content, it would be important to have a name or abbreviation for those industries in your campaign names that are used across the board. Some fields are obvious, like address fields or company names need to be consistent and a dropdown to easily report on it.

It’s critical to establish a strategic-led data governance document so it’s clear to the business and all employees what items need to be named consistently in various systems (such as campaign names in QuickBooks, Hubspot, and paid LinkedIn).

Advantages:

1. Cleaner data: Reduces the risk of typos or variations, clean data that is normalized in data-speak
2. Automated Insights built-in: Simplifies the process of data aggregation and interpretation.
3. User-Friendly: Eliminates guesswork for the user.
4. Saves time!
   For example, companies that do not use templates with dropdowns in excel files for repeated lead imports can save up to X hours a month when importing weekly, recreate the same fields across multiple spreadsheets manually by memory and often encounter errors when imported into the CRM, without being notified! 

Disadvantages:

1. Limited Flexibility: May not capture all nuances or unique cases.
2. Time-Consuming Setup: Requires initial effort to create and maintain.

What Is Free-Form Data Entry?

Free-form or free text data entry allows users to input data without restrictions. There are no predetermined choices, offering complete flexibility. Free-form is often used initially as a default when companies are in start-up form as it’s purely for human consumption and seems obvious to the user.

Advantages:

1. Flexibility: Can capture nuanced and specific information.
2. Quick Setup: No need to define choices beforehand.

Disadvantages:

1. Inconsistency: Prone to errors and variations. Requires manual clean up.
2. Analysis Headache: Cleaning and interpreting free-form data can be complex and time-consuming.
3. Can create false information: if the true answer does not fit existing options, a user may be forced to choose an inaccurate one.

Naming Conventions – Use Cases

When to Use Controlled Vocabulary and Picklists

• Any data that has to be scaled repeatedly.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: For tracking stages in a sales funnel or customer statuses.
• Inventory Management: For categorizing items and managing stock levels.
• Employee Surveys: For collecting consistent feedback for analysis.

When to Use Free-Form: Qualitative Feedback

• Qualitative feedback:
• Incident Reports: For capturing specific details of an unusual event.
• Customer Reviews: For collecting open-ended feedback. 

• Creative Brainstorming: For gathering unfiltered ideas. 

The Middle Ground: Combining Both

In many cases, the best approach is a hybrid one. For example, using a picklist for general categories and a free-form text box for additional comments can offer both structure and flexibility.

The controlled vocabulary and picklists vs free-form debate doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. The right choice depends on your specific needs for data consistency, analysis, and flexibility.