Category: IT
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Richmond Code Camp 2010.1: The Business End of Data Modeling
Thanks to all who attended my presentation at Richmond Code Camp 2010.1 on May 22. Here’s a link to the PowerPoint presentation: The Business End of Data Modeling (2.5m) The presentation was about what to expect before you start database design and what to do if you don’t get it. Software development professionals apply technology solutions…
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Thoughts on the Jazz Process
I always thought the analogy would be cheesy, but Adrian Cho’s “Jazz Process” is a carefully researched and well presented “framework for improving collaboration, innovation and agility inspired by the way in which jazz musicians deliver strong, innovative performances.” Mr. Cho, with deep roots in both jazz and application development, presents a method for app dev…
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SQL Saturday #30, Richmond Virginia, April 10, 2010
Thanks to all who attended my presentations at SQL Saturday on April 10. Here are the materials from my two presentations: – The Business End of Data Modeling (2.5m powerpoint presentation) – Normalize Metadata For Data Integration Analysis (5.5m full version, zip including presentation and code samples) – Normalize Metadata For Data Integration Analysis (small)…
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Business requirements up front
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso It is an old story: about 30% of IT application projects succeed, 45% are “challenged,” and the other quarter fail…
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We like databases
I was preparing a presentation about databases and thought of a Dilbert strip I’d seen years ago. Easily distracted, I searched for it. I didn’t find the strip itself, but here’s the transcript I found: Boss: I just got our consultant report and he has identified our biggest problem Wally: I recommend that we build…
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Groupthink and the Agile Architect
Need uber-guru types who are willing to challenge the existing groupthink on design and architecture, especially on TDD and emergent design and pair programming anti-pattern” – job post at Monster.com 2/9/2010 I stumbled upon that quote following links on the role of the architect on an agile project. Maybe one important role of the architect…
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SQL Saturday Richmond, coming Saturday 1/30
Update 1/28/2010: Saturday’s event postponed to April 10 due to threat of inclement weather
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On DW federation, whac-a-mole, and integrating business data
Information Management recently sent around their pick of best IM blog articles of 2009. Among them was Forrester’s James Kobelius’s reaction to Bill Inmon’s “incineration of a straw man concept that he refers to as ‘virtual data warehousing (DW).’” According to Mr. Inmon, virtual data warehousing reminds him of the carnival game called whac-a-mole. He…
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Stuck inside of problems with the business blues again?
Many see IT as application of technology to solve business problems. Of course, this is true but it leaves out the third element, which is to apply the right architectural pattern to solve the problem. For example, when the business problem is that reporting is slow and reports from different departments don’t match, the astute…
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Cloud databases and business/IT alignment
Today, the foundation of most of our custom-built systems is a relational dbms. While development frameworks vary, they overwhelmingly access and maintain data in relational tables and columns. As I write I routinely save this post in a MySQL database, and at work I tend SQL Server applications. Millions of others develop, use, and extract…