[thisisit]

Wow, this article is exactly what is happening in my project including the "data lake" part. The even more infuriating thing is when everything turns into a bizzaro world. Our boss made us spend an hour talking about the difference between "data lake" and "data ocean". The only thing one could do is facepalm

[heisenbit]

You read a well reasoned article and have first hand experience but frankly these are just two data points. You lack the data to justify the effort for a facepalm ;-)

Imho. a lot of these unbounded data projects are the result not just of cargo cult but satisfying a deeper need i.e. management avoiding decision making. It is much easier to go for broad data collection than making a directional decision, building a targeted model and making real world changes that lead to meaningful fact finding. Dreaming of data oceans is less risky than navigating a puddle but the latter moves you actually forward.

[Bartweiss]

> management avoiding decision making

A solid point, but I'd also add justifying decision-making.

The stated reason for projects like this is usually to guide better decision making, which is only possible if the project succeeds. But as long as the project produces some kind of comprehensible output, it can be used as an excuse for making new decisions or changing old ones.

Dilbert used to have a lot of strips about managers using re-orgs to bury their bad decisions. From some of the horror stories I've heard lately, data science and analytics have taken over that role at many companies, helping to cover up power grabs and backtracking under the guise of "listening to the data".