The Data and Evidence Map
The Data and Evidence Map decides what a system — human or agent — may read, which source wins when sources disagree, and what must never enter the system at all. It is the map small firms get right when they take it seriously, and it is a set of decisions, not configurations: none of them needs an engineer, all of them need an owner to insist.
The template
One page, filled in with the people who do the work.
Print this page, or copy the prompts into your own sheet. Nothing here needs a tool, an engineer or a licence — only the people who already know the answers, in one room, writing them down in the same place.
The sources this work may read — listed, not assumed.
The authoritative source per question: when two sources disagree, which one wins — declared in advance, so conflicts surface instead of being averaged away.
The external sources that count: named services, publications or databases — including the knowledge bases the company pays for, whether an agent may access them under the licence, and what it must do when it cannot: label the gap, never substitute open-web material silently.
The exclusion list: what must never enter the system — margins, personnel judgements, customer identities, whatever your firm's equivalents are. Decide this first.
Where the data may live and travel: self-hosted, EU-hosted, or not at all — and who signed that decision.
What the system's outputs must cite: every number traceable to where it came from; "the agent found it" is not a source.
Role lenses
The same map, read six ways.
One sheet serves the whole team, but each Transformer role is looking for something different on it. Take the line for your role and mark that first.
Owner
which numbers the decision stands on when sources disagree.
Organizer
which status source is true when the tool and the team differ.
Creator
what reference material may inspire, and what may never be copied.
Implementer
which credentials and environments the work may touch.
Tester
what counts as evidence of "working", and who defined it.
Maintainer
which logs exist, who reads them, and what must never appear in them.
The method
Where this map is worked through.
The other maps, and the two working sheets that ship as printable PDFs, are in the Toolkit.