Is a Single Source of Truth Unattainable?

A Look to the Past: When ERP Promised Everything

When the Tool Fits the Mode of Thinking

Remember, a hammer is perfect for a nail but useless for a screw! For instance, consider a team of developers. What they don’t need is general “taskTaskSynonym for → ProjectA project is a time-limited undertaking with defined objectives and resources that delivers unique results and often includes complex tasks. administration”. Instead, they make use of workflows for sprints, backlogs, and automated code reviews.  

If you force agile teams to work in the project module of a financial suite, efficiency drops demonstrably. Resistance from the team will grow, and data maintenance will become a burden. We know, though, that “let teams work the way the want“ is not only a marketing phrase – it’s also a tool to turn the tides.

Adaptability Through Local Flexibility

A definitive plus for specialized tools is the speed with which an organization can utilize new knowledge. A specialized tool can often be introduced seamlessly because it builds on existing skills. These decentralized adjustments don’t need a company-wide transition, and don’t overwhelm employeesEmployeesSynonym for → ResourceResources are all the people, places and things that you need to complete projects. The most important resource? Employees, of course!.

The strategic advantage is that a modular landscape allows you to test new methods in the relevant niches. You can pilot test optimizations, and then introduce them to more departments if they lead to success. Or you can disregard less successful tests without disrupting the entire tool landscape. This agility is exactly what monoliths do not allow with their rigid structure.

The Importance of Autonomy

Why do teams defend their tools so passionately? Because people are the most engaged when their basic needs for autonomy are fulfilled. When teams can select their methods and tools themselves, they exercise autonomy and take responsibility – a known driver of data quality.

Coercion, on the other hand, forces people to work by the book. Systems are available, but they are empty in terms of content.

Problem 1: SaaS-Sprawl

What began as freedom has devolved into hundreds of subscriptions. 53% of SaaS licenses are unused – quite a significant cost factor. This leads to an immense administrative effort from the IT and Procurement departments – from managing licenses, controlling who has access to what, and performing security audits. This administrative headache eats away at the time that specialized tools should be able to save.

Problem 2: Toggle Tax

The human brain isn’t perfectly designed for multi-tasking. Each switch between tools – whether it be from Slack to Jira, or from Excel to Salesforce – takes focus and can add to your mental clutter, which can make concentrated work more difficult. As a result, employees spend 9% of their time switching between apps instead of delivering value.

Problem 3: Spaghetti Architecture

The technical backbone of many organizations nowadays is a type of “Spaghetti Architecture”. In order to connect disparate solutions, point-to-point integrationsIntegrationAn integration is a virtual interface that connects different software programs and enables automated data exchange between them. This allows for more efficient processes, better planning, and consistent information. are often hastily built. The result is fragile; if a single tool changes its API, then connections may be broken but remain unnoticed. Information that gets changed in one location, will either be delivered with errors, or not at all, to the rest of the organization.

This unreliability leads to an “integration tax” — an extra expense that forces IT teams to spend more time preparing unstable bridges than actually driving innovation forward.

In Summary:

Best of Breed alone is not the solution. So, should you turn back to the suite?

Shelfware & the Return of Shadow ITs

Unfortunately, a suite won’t lower costs either. A Gartner analyst found that 25-30% of features in Enterprise Suites remain unused. This means people pay for powerful packages, but only use bits and pieces, because the modules don’t fit for their real-world needs. This is not only less cost effective, but also leads to the return of shadow ITs.

The GIGO Spiral: Garbage In, Garbage Out

If teams are forced to use sub-optimal modules, they will be less and less accepted. Data won’t be carefully managed. The suite should deliver a Single Source of Truth – but instead it merely delivers junk.

Vendor Lock-In: Strategic Paralysis

Once the suite is deeply embedded in all of your process and departments, you’ll quickly become dependent on this particular suite; in other words, you’ll find yourself in a state of vendor lock-in.

Is your vendor missing out on trends? If so, you’ll miss out on them too. Does your vendor make it possible to integrate with other tools? You could be pigeon-holed into only using worse tools. Did your vendor raise its prices? You’ll stay, because data migration and onboarding your employeesEmployeesSynonym for → ResourceResources are all the people, places and things that you need to complete projects. The most important resource? Employees, of course!, among a host of other tasksTasksSynonym for → ProjectA project is a time-limited undertaking with defined objectives and resources that delivers unique results and often includes complex tasks., could cost you millions. The desired simplification of your admin can become a strategic obstacle – and with that, you’ll lose the ability to flexibly react to market trends.

Let Us Demonstrate: Consider an Airport

Imagine you’re at an airport. The specialized teams are the airplanes (in this case, the spokes). Every pilot gets their own prepared machine from the organization. They have the ability to steer however they want. They know what to do – after all, they are the experts.

The tower (hub) does not dictate how the pilots should fly. Instead, it coordinates when and where flights take place. It ensures that there are no collisions, that everyone arrives safely, and that the entire system functions properly.

Applied to your IT landscape: Teams continue to work in their specialized tools – Jira for development, HubSpot for marketing, Asana for project managementProject ManagementProject management is the planning, steering, and monitoring of projects to achieve specific objectives within a given timeframe and budget.. However, strategically relevant data automatically flows into a central hub that acts as an integration and coordination point.

How Hub & Spoke Compensates for the Disadvantages of a Best-of-Breed Landscape

Problem 1 Solved – SaaS-Sprawl:

A curated set of best-of-breed tools offers freedom within guidelines. IT retains governance; it decides which tools are integrated into the hub. The departments maintain their efficiency; they work with tools that suit their tasksTasksSynonym for → ProjectA project is a time-limited undertaking with defined objectives and resources that delivers unique results and often includes complex tasks.. This prevents uncontrolled growth without stifling innovation.

Problem 2 Solved – Toggle Tax:

Since the hub aggregates all information, a strategic overview is created in one place. Operational staff can stay productive using the specialized app that perfectly suits the task. Management no longer has to jump between twenty dashboards – they have all the information relevant to decision-making in the hub.

Problem 3 Solved – Spaghetti Architecture:

Instead of connecting each tool to every other tool, each application now only connects to the central hub. Complexity is dramatically reduced; instead of endless, fragile point-to-point connections, you only need stable hub connections. The data flow becomes stable, maintainable, and reliable.

The Essence of Managed Autonomy

Order at the center only works when there is freedom at the edges. It is the path to a Single Source of Truth based not on constraint, but on intelligent integrationIntegrationAn integration is a virtual interface that connects different software programs and enables automated data exchange between them. This allows for more efficient processes, better planning, and consistent information..

Selective integrations instead of copying data:

This solution does not lie in blindly integrating every piece of data. Meisterplan focuses on the essentials with a growing number of maintenance-free, out-of-the-box connections. Only the information that really matters for portfolio decisions flows into the hub. This creates a Single Source of Truth – not through sheer volume, but through strategic validity.

Automatic translation for both worlds:

Meisterplan automatically translates operational data into strategic language. Teams don’t have to interrupt their work for manual reporting. They stay productive  in Jira or Azure DevOps, or whatever other tools they use. At the same time, decision-makers get the portfolio overview they need – without jumping between tools. The toggle tax disappears for both sides.

From decentralized expertise to strategic leverage:

Team autonomy becomes a strategic advantage. Meisterplan allows expertise at the edges and coordinates the results centrally. With portfolio visibility and intuitive scenario simulationScenario SimulationSynonym for → ScenarioIn project portfolio management (PPM), scenarios are potential ways that your portfolio can look, based on a set of well-defined assumptions and portfolio decisions. Scenario planning is used to forecast…, managers can make reliable commitments: When will projectsProjectA project is a time-limited undertaking with defined objectives and resources that delivers unique results and often includes complex tasks. really be finished? Which plans can be implemented with the available resourcesResourceResources are all the people, places and things that you need to complete projects. The most important resource? Employees, of course!?