Category: IT
-
Grow your own row-level security
Data security is not optional in today’s business environment. High-visibility hacking and fraud, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA regulations, and the Patriot Act all reinforce the need to present the right data to the right users and prevent the wrong ones from gaining access. Typically, “row level security” (RLS) is one requirement: to allow or permit access to…
-
Someone’s integrating your data
Here’s a little-recognized fact about data integration: if you run a business or any sizable chunk of one, someone is integrating your data. In my professional life I have on occasion suggested data integration efforts. Sometimes my suggestions have been accepted and sometimes not. As an IT professional I understand that different managers have different…
-
Big project coming up? Learn to two-step.
History is littered with IT application projects that end late, go way over budget, or abandoned altogether. I was fortunate enough to see one work out really well (almost – please read on). It was no mistake. It came down to a simple method advocated by a gentleman named named John Carpenter. The project was…
-
Beware the devils in the details of data integration
Much of today’s IT application development – custom or off-the-shelf – involves integrating data from legacy systems, third- party software products and external data sources such as demographics or mail lists. More often than not, data integration is unexpectedly complex, either due to data quality issues or the nature of the data integration itself.
-
A pretty good requirements analysis checklist
Recently I was asked for a high level requirements plan for a large IT conversion. I googled around a little for something standard. I found some good references (see links at the bottom of this post), but not exactly what I was looking for: a simple, method-agnostic layout of the high level steps and checkpoints…
-
What’s wrong with calling them “users”
To me, calling someone a “user” contributes to the gulf between IT and other business people.
-
Free form diagrams part 3: just right, with a few rules
Free form diagramming doesn’t only mean “no rules”, it also means “just right”. This post, last in a three part series on free form diagramming, gives some simple guidelines for getting the technique right. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams…
-
Free form diagrams part 2: real world applications
This is part two of a three part series on free form diagramming for IT projects. This entry reviews free form diagramming in practice. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams can hinder rather than help communications with business people. Part…
-
Free form diagrams part 1: rigor versus business appeal
One effective way of communicating complexity, especially in the overall architecture of a system, is the free form diagram. A free form diagram can directly address unique characteristics of a system in a way that business people can understand. Out on a walk some years ago I met an acquaintance who happened to be a…
-
Data modeling: essential business skill
Everyone involved in managing or improving a business process should understand data modeling. For real. And almost everyone is in a position to improve a business process by understanding the current one and making suggestions to improve it. Understanding a business process means understanding business objects, events, the relations among them, and the business rules…