PATTERN Cited by 1 source

Dual-owner approval for metric changes

Pattern

Require both the Business Owner and the Operational Owner to approve any change to a governed metric's definition before it is merged into the canonical package.

Rationale

1. Informed and coordinated action — ensures all relevant parties are aware of the change and can make necessary reactive adjustments (e.g., the Operational Owner might need new DQ checks after a business definition update).
2. Accountability and quality control — leverages the distinct knowledge of each party. One owner may be aware of critical nuances the other is not, preventing suboptimal changes from being adopted.

(Source: sources/2026-06-10-lyft-metric-semantic-layer)

Implementation at Lyft

Changes to metric YAML definitions in the MSL package go through code review requiring sign-off from both the owning teams. Since owners are teams (not individuals), the pattern is resilient to personnel changes.

When to apply

• Metrics that cross team boundaries (≥2 consumers)
• Metrics that feed both business dashboards and ML models
• Any metric whose inconsistency could lead to incorrect operational decisions

Seen in

• sources/2026-06-10-lyft-metric-semantic-layer — mandatory dual approval for all Golden Metric definition changes