Tag: Data Modeling
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Abstracting and recombining all the way to the bank
In the past I’ve never understood what people really mean they say “think outside the box” but Jim Harris, in a recent OCDQ blog post, helped me figure it out. Mr. Harris ends with this provocative line: “the bottom line is Google and Facebook have socialized data in order to capitalize data as a true corporate asset.” The post…
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Get an early start for on-time data modeling
I’m a data modeler, so I enjoyed Jonathon Geiger’s recent article entitled “Why Does Data Modeling Take So Long”. But why does he say it like it’s a bad thing? Mr. Geiger’s bottom line is exactly right: “Most of the time spent developing data models is consumed developing or clarifying the requirements and business rules…
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Thoughts after agile training: strengthening values, reducing the cost of honesty, and growing apps
I recently completed ScrumMaster training ably presented by Lyssa Adkins. Throughout the two-day class we appreciated Lyssa’s Zen-like, enabling, style. If her name is familiar, it’s because Ms. Adkins is the author of the book Coaching Agile Teams, one of the leading texts on the subject. I’ve participated on agile projects, but so far only…
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Metadata goals, ROI, and point solutions
Recently there has been a long, and very interesting, discussion of do-it-yourself versus third-party metadata tools on LinkedIn’s TDWI BI and DW discussion forum (membership required to follow the link). I have followed but haven’t commented, but I suppose I contributed when Information Management kindly published my article on DIY metadata. The discussion is extremely…
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Use conceptual data modeling in requirements definition
I’ve often thought that conceptual data modeling was an underused tool in the arsenal available to requirements analysts, and in a recent conversation I found that many were surprised that it would be used in the requirements phase at all. Checking the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) I found data modeling listed among the…
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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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Data and Wine?
Great together, check this out:
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DQ, he isn’t so dumb he just needs glasses
In a recent very thoughtful post on data quality, Paul Erb plays out an analogy comparing data users with Don Quixote and data quality professionals with Sancho Panza, then reverses the analogy to cleverly coin the “Sancho Panza” test of data quality professionals. He encourages data quality professionals promoting the critical role of data quality…
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No business value in nulls
It seems I’m frequently in conversations about using null to represent a business value. To paraphrase, say there are credit and cash customers, and there’s a suggestion to set “Customer_Type” to “C” for credit and null for cash. To data and database professionals this is obviously a bad idea, but it’s not obvious from a…
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A proposal for Enterprise Information Architecture
While many organizations understand the value of managing the information resource, for many others information management remains abstract and difficult to define. In an effort to make it concrete here’s a hypothetical proposal to provide an Enterprise Information Architect for a hypothetical organization that really needs one.