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Conflict Resolution Workflow

Resolution process — instantiates Source-of-Truth Assignment

Routes a detected disagreement between representations through review, reconciliation, escalation, or authoritative override, applying a standing precedence rule so the same conflict resolves the same way every time.

Conflict Resolution Workflow is the procedure that runs when a disagreement is detected. Two representations of the same fact diverge; this mechanism catches the divergence and drives it to a resolution along a defined path — apply the standing precedence, or investigate, reconcile, quarantine, escalate, or correct the source. Its distinguishing pieces are a precedence rule (the standing ranking of which representation wins) and the routing logic around it. Where other mechanisms decide what is authoritative, this one handles the moment when copies actually clash, making that resolution repeatable instead of ad hoc.

Example

An online retailer's CRM says a customer's shipping address is one thing; the ERP that drives fulfillment says another. A nightly check flags the mismatch before an order ships to the wrong place. The workflow routes it: the standing precedence rule says the ERP governs shipping addresses for fulfillment, so if confidence is high the ERP value is applied automatically. But if the CRM change is newer and customer-initiated, the workflow instead holds the order and routes the case to a data steward; if it's still unresolved after 24 hours, it escalates. Crucially, when investigation shows the ERP (the nominal source) is the stale one, the workflow can correct the source itself rather than blindly deferring to it. Every mismatch now travels a known path, and none silently ships.

How it works

The process is detect → classify → resolve → record. Detection surfaces the disagreement; classification decides whether it can be auto-resolved by the precedence rule or must be routed to a human. Its two defining dials are the precedence rule — a static ranking of which representation wins — and the routing and escalation logic that governs when a machine applies precedence versus when a person adjudicates. Distinctively, it treats the authoritative source as challengeable: precedence is the default, not an unbreakable law, so a stale or corrupt "source" can be corrected rather than propagated.

Tuning parameters

  • Precedence rule — the standing ranking of which representation wins when copies disagree (source-of-record over cache; human-verified over system; newer over older). The heart of the mechanism.
  • Auto-resolve threshold — how confident the workflow must be before applying precedence automatically versus routing to a steward. Higher thresholds catch subtle cases but cost human time.
  • Escalation ladder — how quickly unresolved conflicts climb and to whom, so disputes surface rather than silently pile up.
  • Source-correction allowance — whether the workflow may correct the authoritative source itself when it is the one that is wrong, or only align the others to it.

When it helps, and when it misleads

Its strength is making conflict resolution repeatable: the same disagreement resolves the same way regardless of who is on shift, and no one gets to "pick the convenient copy." Its failure modes come from over-rigid or over-loose precedence. A rule that always defers to the nominal source will faithfully propagate that source's errors when it is the stale one;[1] an escalation path with no owner just buries conflicts under a "pending review" label. The classic misuse is auto-applying precedence to make disagreements disappear from dashboards while the underlying data-quality problem festers. The discipline that guards against this is letting the source be challenged, not merely obeyed, and watching conflict volume as a quality signal rather than an inconvenience.

How it implements the components

  • conflict_resolution_rule — the detect-classify-resolve procedure itself, including investigate, reconcile, quarantine, escalate, and correct-the-source paths.
  • precedence_rule — the standing ranking that makes resolution repeatable and stops actors from choosing whichever copy suits them.

It does not name which source holds precedence in the first place (that is System-of-Record Designation), preserve the record of what was changed (that is Change Log and Audit Trail), or merge duplicate records into a consolidated view (that is Golden Record Consolidation).

References

[1] A naive "last-write-wins" or "source always wins" precedence rule resolves conflicts deterministically but can overwrite a correct value with an incorrect newer one, or faithfully propagate a stale source. This is why a robust workflow keeps a challenge/correction path rather than treating precedence as absolute. ↩