Plexii glossary
Single source of truth
One agreed place where a fact is maintained, with other documents linking to it rather than keeping separate copies.
What it means
The work meaning — one agreed place where a fact lives and everything else reads from it — next to the data-engineering meaning that shares the phrase. Everyday failures it prevents: the revenue figure in a deck, a model and an update disagreeing. How to set one up: name the source, link rather than copy, date it.
The term is most useful as a shared description. It does not remove the need to look at the actual task, evidence or constraint in front of you.
A practical example
The board deck reads its monthly total from the same table as the finance chart instead of retyping the number.
Put it into practice
- Name the concrete situation before applying the label. Single source of truth is useful only when it changes a choice, boundary or next action.
- Make the state visible: write the owner, time, source or stopping condition down instead of relying on memory.
- Review what happened. Keep the part that reduced ambiguity and change the part that added ceremony without helping the work.
How it relates to Plexii
a Chart, Metrics and a Stat card read the rows of a Table and redraw when it changes (widget chart, widgets dashboard); duplicated widgets can stay in sync across desks (widget duplicate sync). Link investor update and monthly investor update.