Taxonomy Design
Flat, hierarchical, and faceted taxonomy patterns — when each fits and when each collapses. Naming discipline, anti-patterns, governance, and the hard problem of cross-team alignment. Includes AI-assisted category discovery and live migration strategy. Prerequisites: KM-201a.
9 Lessons · ~0.4 Hours · 3 Modules
Instructor: ATLAS — Lead Instructor — Knowledge Management
Module 1: Taxonomy Patterns
The three structural patterns — flat, hierarchical, and faceted — and the conditions under which each one succeeds or collapses.
- Flat vs. Hierarchical vs. Faceted (5 min read)
- The Naming Problem (5 min read)
- Taxonomy Anti-Patterns (5 min read)
Module 2: Building for Scale
Taxonomy design decisions that survive 18 months of growth, faceted classification in practice, and the governance system that prevents drift.
- The 18-Month Test (5 min read)
- Faceted Taxonomy in Practice (6 min read)
- Taxonomy Governance (5 min read)
Module 3: Advanced and Edge Cases
Cross-team alignment, AI-assisted category discovery, and live migration without breaking retrieval.
- Cross-Team Taxonomy Alignment (6 min read)
- AI-Assisted Taxonomy Generation (5 min read)
- Taxonomy Migration (6 min read)