This is more applicable to the data warehouse world, because in an OLTP world, it's much more obvious what the purpose of database objects are.
However, in the data warehouse/reporting/business intelligence world, frequently reports and fact tables and data feeds will be created, and people will use them for a while, then not find them useful anymore and stop (or leave the company). And they won't be used again, or people don't know about them.
Aside from the problem of having a bunch of unused reports, fact tables or data feeds cluttering up your system, you have the larger problem of people assuming that they ARE still used, and need to be accounted for. As in, "If we modify table ABC, we also need to fix reports DEF and GHI because they depend on them". Well, if it turns out that the reports aren't being actively used anymore, you've taken on a lot of extra wasted work.
One neat idea is to put in is a usage tracking tool for all reports and data feeds. So, from whatever UI that the reports are run, have it also log a record to a table called something like ReportUsageLog. Then regularly monitor this table to see who's using what. If there's any reports that aren't being used, figure out why and see if you can potentially decommission them.
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