Initial “Messy Company” Condition — MCG-001 through MCG-012
These defects are stable synthetic learning conditions. Later labs may repair them, but the original condition or a reproducible defect-injection path should be preserved so before/after analysis remains possible.
| Issue ID | Problem | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| MCG-001 | Customer identity conflict | CRM, POS and Service use different customer IDs; names/addresses/emails conflict. |
| MCG-002 | Active customer definition conflict | Sales defines activity by engagement; Finance by completed purchase; Service includes entitlement holders. |
| MCG-003 | Product category drift | PIM and reporting use different category codes/names. |
| MCG-004 | Unknown lineage | Executive revenue KPI cannot be traced quickly from dashboard back to sources/transforms. |
| MCG-005 | Quality defects | Null emails, duplicate customers, invalid product references, impossible quantities and stale addresses. |
| MCG-006 | Over-permissioned analyst | A reporting account can read synthetic sensitive customer attributes it does not need. |
| MCG-007 | Unclear retention | Old service attachments and supplier documents are retained without consistent rules. |
| MCG-008 | Local spreadsheets | Several teams maintain local code lists and manual extracts outside controlled definitions. |
| MCG-009 | Weak metadata | Many columns lack descriptions, owners, classifications or trustworthy source information. |
| MCG-010 | Governance ambiguity | Issues are discussed, but decision authority and escalation are not consistently defined. |
| MCG-011 | Warehouse disagreement | Two dashboards show different “net sales” because transformations and inclusion rules differ. |
| MCG-012 | Change resistance | A business unit resists the shared customer definition and master-record process. |
How to use the defect catalog
Do not treat these as twelve independent one-off exercises. A single defect may activate several DMBOK areas. For example:
- MCG-001 Customer identity conflict may involve governance, modeling, integration, master data, metadata, and quality.
- MCG-004 Unknown lineage may involve architecture, integration, warehousing/BI, metadata, and quality.
- MCG-006 Over-permissioned analyst may involve governance, Data Security, classification metadata, and roles.
- MCG-012 Change resistance may involve governance, organizational roles, and change management.
The 00C execution card and controlling DMBOK chapter determine the learning focus for a particular lab. Do not attempt to “solve everything at once” merely because multiple domains are relevant.
Defect maintenance rule
When a lab fixes one of these conditions:
- preserve the original defect or reproducible injection logic;
- record the repair decision/evidence;
- note which later labs depend on the repaired state;
- distinguish the Meridian implementation choice from any DAMA principle used to justify it.
Source: Meridian Commerce Group Enterprise Data Management Casebook, Section 6.