Finance, sales and product each define "active customer" differently, and all three are correct for their purpose. How should the glossary handle this?

The mistake: forcing a single definition

Attempting to make three teams agree on one definition produces a long negotiation ending in either a compromise that serves nobody or a decision that one team ignores. The definitions differ because the decisions differ — a revenue recognition question and a product engagement question are genuinely not the same question.

The workable approach

Name them distinctly and define each precisely. "Billing-active customer", "engagement-active customer", "contract-active customer" — three terms, three definitions, three owners, each traceable to the query that computes it.

Then:

• Ban the ambiguous term in reporting. If a dashboard says "active customers" with no qualifier, it is a defect.
• Record the relationship between them, so someone comparing two numbers can see why they differ instead of filing a data quality issue.
• Bind each definition to executable logic in the semantic layer, so the definition and the computation cannot drift apart. A glossary maintained separately from the code is a glossary that is wrong.
• Assign an owner per term, empowered to decide, because definitional disputes without an arbiter run forever.

The general principle

A glossary's job is to eliminate ambiguity, not to eliminate variety. Multiple precise definitions are healthy; one vague definition everyone interprets differently is the actual problem.