The sooner HR can become less HR centric and more business centric the better. HR tech needs to do the same. I’m not a big fan of silos, and I welcome any efforts to improve integration.

HRIT needs to enter that dark wood, but it has the benefit of following the well trodden path of other functions like finance and supply chain. THey have been doing a lot of work on cross functional integration. HR could do worse than chat to the SRM follks down the corridor.

There is start on specifications for integration of talent management systems at arms-length:
http://www.hrinterop.org/schemas/OAGi-BPI-Platform/org_hr-xml/3_0/Documentation/Guidelines/pt06.php
http://www.hrinterop.org/schemas/OAGi-BPI-Platform/org_hr-xml/3_0/Documentation/Guidelines/pt05.php
http://www.hrinterop.org/schemas/OAGi-BPI-Platform/org_hr-xml/3_0/Documentation/Guidelines/ch11.php

I know you just read Jason Corsello’s related post. If you buy into his analysis, the strongest differentiators among EPM vendors are integration and user experience. If this is true, what are the incentives for vendors to really advance any notion of a common information model to integrate arms-length talent management components? This is particular unlikely if there aren’t any customers in the room in which these standards discussions take place.

I agree with your point about HR IT leaders needing to learn a whole lot about the nitty-gritty of data governance, data semantics and masterdata management. However, those are dark, deep woods that some have strolled into and have never emerged… I’d like to believe the best way is for HR IT leaders not to stroll into the woods alone, but in some cooperative manner. This might lower risks for everyone and also might encourage the right sort of engagement by vendors.