By Karen Lopez on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 1:49 PM

I just finished a whitepaper sponsored by Embarcadero Technologies on Collaborating with Developers and DBAs: 7 Easy Steps to an Easier Project, Better Product, and Stronger Team .  Registration is required.

In this paper, I discuss seven ways you can improve the performance of your teams, specifically with the technical users of your models.  I believe that we data and process architects are so swamped with work that we forget that in addition to the business, we have developers and DBAs as users, not just consumers, of our modeling deliverables. 

In addition, I've developed a presentation on this topic -- see my blog post prior to this one.  If you are interested in having me present on this topic at your company or at your local user group, please contact me at website@infoadvisors.com . I'd love to come visit.

I would appreciate feedback on this paper and presentation.  What did I miss?  Am I wrong on some of these?  In your experience, would these steps work?  Would your boss let you follow them?  Have you implemented these types of things?

Opinions, for or against, awaited.

 

By Karen Lopez on Monday, June 18, 2007 8:20 PM

On Tuesday 26 June 2007, I will be speaking at the Portland Oregon DAMA Chapter on Collaborating with Techs: Performance Improvement with Developers and DBAs.  This is a brand new presentation I've developed and Portland DAMA has been kind enough to be the first audience to see it.

So if you are in the Portland or Vancouver WA area, I'd love to get your input into the presentation.

I'm also giving my "Everything I know about Data Management I Learned from Amazon.com / Powells.com one that's a lot of fun.

See announcement below

Hope to see you there

Karen  speaking at DAMA Portland on 26 June 2007

        
Next Meeting:  Tuesday June 26th , 2007    
Subject

Working with Techies: Better Collaboration with Developers and DBAs

Karen Lopez

Schedule

 8:30 – 9:00 a.m.    Sign-in /coffee and pastries
 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.   Presentation

11:00 - 11:30 a.m.   Chapter News/Announcements

Where

Con-way

2055 NW Savier St

Portland, OR 97209

There is free parking at Con-way

Cost

Free for members!
$15 for non-members.
See the list of corporate members.

RSVP

E-mail VP-Communication by Thursday, June 21st

Abstract

Working with Techies: Better Collaboration with Developers and DBAs

An interactive workshop on increasing collaboration with developers, DBAs, and other technical IT staff.   Topics will include:

·       Working with the new generation of IT workers
·       Location, location, location
·       Throwing models over the wall
·       Resolving differences of opinion
·       Architecture versus model versus design
·       Proactive versus reactive methods
·       Removing obstacles to success
·       Building Trust
·       Each attendee will take away a portfolio of techniques and checklists for having easier projects, better products, and faster tasks.

 

I Learned Everything I Need To Know About Data Modeling from Amazon.com: An Overview of Really Useful Books that Aren't About Data Modeling    

Karen shares her passion in reading by giving an overview of really useful books for data architects who want to be:

·       Great team members
·       Well positioned in the workplace
·       Great communicators
·       Better Analysts
·       Attendees will also get the opportunity to nominate their favorite books.

Speaker

Bio

Speaker: Karen Lopez

Karen Lopez is a principal consultant at InfoAdvisors, Inc., a Toronto-based consulting firm. She has 20 years of experience in project and data management on large, multi-project programs.  She specializes in the practical application of data management principles. 

Karen is  frequent speaker at DAMA chapters and conferences around the world.  Her sessions are well attended and receive great reviews.  She is often invited to return to speak again on new topics.

She has been a speaker for:

§       DAMA Australia
§       DAMA MN*
§       DAMA Portland*
§       DAMA San Francisco
§       DAMA UK
§       IRMAC (Toronto)*
§       Albany EMUG
§       Dallas EMUG
§       New York City EMUG*

*Multiple events

Karen is a former president of the Information Resource Management Association of Canada (IRMAC), and was the 2006 recipient of the Gary Hadford Professional Achievement Award.  She is also the ListMistress and moderator of the InfoAdvisors Discussion Groups at www.infoadvisors.com.  

By Karen Lopez on Monday, June 18, 2007 9:57 AM

IBM and Telelogic have announced a cash offer to purchase Telelogic AB, current owner of [former]ly Popkin] Systems Architect:

Popkin’s software, System Architect, is used for modeling enterprise systems, IT infrastructures or indeed an entire enterprise’s business processes. Though it supports unified modeling language (UML) - which is also the developers’ modeling standard adopted by Telelogic and competitors that include IBM/Rational, Borland, Compuware, Oracle and others - its software is aimed more at business users than applications developers.

Popkin’s software is said to be adopted primarily by business users, who use System Architect to map out their business processes, in order that they might audit, manage and streamline them.

If this sale goes through, this could lead to a signficant change in the types of systems development methods that work with UML and Rational.  While the Telelogic suite of modeling and applications development tools already supports multiple rows and columns of the Zachman Framwork, IBM's Rational suite of products have primarily focused on only the last two rows of coding and implementing.  If IBM does what it should do and properly integrates (not just interfaces) Systems Architect and the Rational suite, development teams may now have the set of mature IBM-owned tools to complete analysis, design, and testing deliverables. 

Another perk of this acquisition may be that more-local support will be provided.  Telelogic is located in Sweden and many of our customers in North America have struggled with getting timely support to urgent issues due to the time difference.

The downside, as I see it, is that the ongoing consolidation of modeling tool ownership is going to lead to fewer tool options for modelers.

Either way, I believe that if IBM steps up and re-architects the Rational Suite to support true model-driven, full Zachman row and column integration with their products, organizations will benefit a great deal from this significant change to what have been developer techie-only coding tools that have diagramming front ends.

InfoAdvisors is an IBM and Telelogic partner.

By Karen Lopez on Monday, June 18, 2007 9:39 AM

CA's ERwin Product Manager Danny Sandwell was interviewed by eChannelLine's Patricia Pickett on CA's plans to sell ERwin Data Modeler soley through third party channels:

However, beginning with its fiscal year this April, CA made the conscious decision to change that sales model. "Our plan is to make this 100 per cent available through the channel," Sandwell said. All of the large enterprise accounts will be handed over to the channel, and partners will also get the associated contract renewals, providing an "automatic boom" for those that have stuck by CA, he said. CA's inside sales team, which formerly generated leads and closed some sales if the customer did not specify a preferred partner, will now focus solely on lead generation, passing over all opportunities to the channel.

"This is one of the efforts CA is making in support of expanding and improving its leverage of the channel and its partnership with the channel," Sandwell continued. There are already a number of smaller VARs out there whose operations are "completely and solely based on providing value-added services around ERwin itself," and this will serve to enhance their businesses, he said.

This means that instead of purchasing ERwin directly from CA, you'll need to purchase through a distributor or VAR.   CA has previously had programs in place to encourage CA sales staff to forward leads to CA Partners, so many of our clients are already purchasing ERwin and the entire modeling suite through other organzations.

For now purchases of ERwin Data Modeler and the entire modeling suite can still be made through store.ca.com, but it appears that only ERwin Data Modeler 7.1 is available there.

InfoAdvisors is a CA partner.

By Karen Lopez on Monday, June 11, 2007 3:19 PM

A recording of the ER/Studio ERSIG recent meeting has been posted.   This meeting included two presentations:

Presentation 1: "Online Macro Creation--Event Handling" by Oktay Amiry, ER/Studio Technical Lead, North America Support Presentation 2: "The Repository Meta Model", by Jason Tiret, ER/Studio Product Manager

 

In addition, we have posted a zip file all the macros from Oktay Amiry's presentation, plus a few more.

 

Please visit the User Groups page on the Embarcadero Technologies web site to download the above as well as presentations from previous ERSIG meetings.

 

http://www.embarcadero.com/resources/usergroups.html

 

NOTE: NO recording key is required to view the recording.

 

By Karen Lopez on Monday, June 11, 2007 1:37 PM

As far as I can tell, the UML standard does not provide guidance for creating traceable logical and physical data models.  By traceable, I mean the ability to have separate models which are linked in a way that allows a modeler to trace from either direction where a modeling object is used in either model.

So this begs the question:

If UML tools support only a single row in the Zachman framework at a time, which one? 

I'm guessing that theoretically the answer could be:

Whichever one you want it to support....

In my experience, though, UML models are prepared solely for a physical view of a specific system/application.  I'm not writing about what the standard says, but how these standards are applied in real life.

Could it be that these models reflect the rows in which most developers work? Or is it something inherent in the modeling techniques themselves?  And what about Conceptual models?  Or any of the other rows in the Framework?