Data Core · Data Collection · Module
Instrumentation
What is deliberately captured and how — the design decision that determines which questions the organisation will ever be able to answer.
The idea
How it works
Instrumentation is usually a side effect of building something else, which means what gets captured is decided by an engineer under time pressure rather than by anyone thinking about questions.
Working backwards from the questions is the correction: list what the organisation will need to know, then check what would have to be captured for each.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Work backwards from the questions
What will you need to know in a year? What would have to be captured for that to be answerable?
- 02
Keep a tracking plan
What is captured, where, with what fields. Without it, instrumentation is discovered by reading code.
- 03
Capture identity carefully
Whether events can be joined to a person or an account determines most of what analysis is possible.
- 04
Record the gaps
Questions that cannot currently be answered, so the next change to the system can close one.
One level in
The components of instrumentation
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
List what you will need to know in a year, then check what would have to be captured for it to be answerable.
The other modules in data collection
The sources
Where data actually comes from, and which source is authoritative where several disagree.
LearnData quality
Whether the data is complete, accurate, timely and consistent — measured rather than assumed, since the assumption is always that it is fine.
LearnConsent and basis
What the organisation is entitled to collect and hold, on what basis, and what it has told people.
Learn