Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture

Business and IT: Us vs. Them

website@infoadvisors.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:34:00 GMT

by Rob Drysdale, InfoAdvisors

Having been involved in projects for over 20 years now, I've seen the working relationship between IT groups and the business and it seems that in most organizations it's dysfunctional. I ran across a blog post recently by Susan Cramm entitled How IT Smart Is Your Organization. The author talks about the fact that there are great technologies out there right now that could benefit businesses. The problem as she states it is:

"...all that potential will never materialize as long as business leaders continue to behave as if IT is something that is done to them rather than by them."

I think this is one of the largest problems with the working relationship between the business and IT. Many organizations believe that the IT group is off on their own and that they don't need to manage them. The problem is that they need to look at them as they would any other service provider. That they need to explicitly detail what they want, manage the development, testing, delivery, etc. As Cramm points out in her blog post most organizations have a separate Finance Department and Human Resource Department. But they still know how to create and manage their own budget and their own people.

I worked with an organization that was very good at vendor management and construction when it was part of their normal work. They made sure they planned the project, did proper engineered drawings, contracted with other organizations to build it, provided ongoing inspection and oversight during construction and tested it. When it came to the IT projects, they didn't understand how important those same planning and construction techniques were to them. I think that there was this belief in the company that they didn't know about IT so they didn't want to manage it. They believed that you could broadly sketch out some high-level requirements and that the IT groups could build a system that met all their needs based on that. Well guess what? It didn't work. Worse yet, there was usually a business case attached to the project that included benefits (usually a reduction of staffing levels) to pay for it and even though the project didn't deliver what it was supposed to the business was still supposed to give up staff.

After having IT projects fail with their internal IT departments, it's no wonder that business executives looked at third party vendors as the way to deliver successful projects. But did it work. No. And why not? Because the business people didn't change their view on how to manage and participate in these projects. They continued to believe that someone else can come up with the solution even if they don't tell them exactly what they want and need.

Until business sponsors and executives figure out that it really is their project, their deliverables, their money being spent, their benefits being created, there will always be IT project failure.

Technorati Tags: Planning,Data Architecture,IT,Business,dysfunction

Who Manages the Data: Generalizations and Data Architecture

website@infoadvisors.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:00:00 GMT

At Enterprise Data World 2010, I will be presenting on how to automate management of reference data, enumerations, and other data instances, especially for situations where a data architect has chosen a more generalized data modeling approach.

Why this topic? I believe that data architects should be managing or at least monitoring reference data throughout the development process, including production. Given the sheer volume of reference data, we need tools and techniques that go beyond writing up a data quality/integrity requirement and hoping someone takes care of it.

Karen Lopez
Sr. Project Manager
InfoAdvisors

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
03:15 PM - 04:15 PM

Level:
Intermediate

Do you leave the management of reference data, codes, and enumerations up to developers or users? If so, you could be adding more risk than you are aware of. In this presentation, Karen Lopez demonstrates tools and techniques for managing reference data and codes. Includes 10 success tips for keeping models and code values in sync.

Topics will include:

Who should manage these?

How should they be managed?

How do we monitor their use?

Technorati Tags: #EDW10,Reference Data,Data Modeling,Data architecture,Generalizations,enumerations,codes

Are You In A Bad Relationship? Get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Karen Lopez - karen@Infoadvisors.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:36:00 GMT

by Rob Drysdale, InfoAdvisors

I've been seeing a lot of articles and blog posts about the relationship between the business and IT. Last year while attending Enterprise Data World it was interesting how many people were talking about how dysfunctional their relationships are with the business. So it got me to thinking that we should put more of an emphasis on it and talk about it. So I'm speaking about it at EDW 2010 in my session on Sunday, March 14th. I've called it "Getting What You Deserve: 7 Steps to Gain Respect in Your Organization". But I've noticed that there are other topics and discussions around this and I think that's great because it's so important. In particular, I noticed that Graeme Simsion will be talking about "What The Business Wants" during a keynote session.

We all need to think about the relationships we have at work and what are we doing about them to make them better. I think too much energy and effort is wasted because both sides aren't working in harmony. This is just a quick post to put the topic out there, but I'll be doing a couple of blog posts in the next few days about where I think some of the problems are and what we can be doing about it.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone at EDW 2010 next week in San Francisco.

NoSQL overview for all us "SQL" folks

Karen Lopez - karen@Infoadvisors.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:30:00 GMT

Brian Aker of MySQL fame gave a 10 minute lighting talk about about the NoSQL movement at the Nov 2009 OpenSQLCamp in Portland, OR.

If you have not heard the term NoSQL, you might want to peruse these articles first to catch up on the lingo:

NoSQL on Wikipedia

MapReduce on Wikipedia

ACID on Wikipedia

And just so that you know, NoSQL isn’t really about SQL, but about non-relational databases.

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Brian Aker on NoSQL

If you’d like to see the slides better, they are available here:

No SQL Talk

View more presentations from brianaker.

As I hear more about NoSQL, I know that there are some great thoughts there, for certain types of data storage needs. So I’m not anti-NoSQL (I believe that’s a double negative). I’m hoping to chat about NoSQL ideas at Enterprise Data World next week.

Technorati Tags: NoSQL,SQL,MySQL,#EDW10

Top 10 Things I’m Looking Forward to at EDW10

website@infoadvisors.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:06:00 GMT

Enterprise Data World is coming in just over a week and I’m really looking forward to it. As I tweeted just a few days ago (and seconded by Alec Sharp):

Psyched about #edw10. Part data management revival, part training, party therapy.

With apologies to Mr. Letterman, my Top 10 Things I’m Looking Forward to at EDW10

10. Attending what I think is my 14th DAMA Conference. That’s a lot of networking. A lot of meals. A lot of sitting in the lobby, sharing stories, laughs, and silly thoughts. Oh, and solving the world’s data problems.

9. Catching up with the many repeat-attendees – good friends whom I first met at a DAMA event in previous years.

8. Hearing how organizations are bringing value to their information resources.

7. Hearing how organizations are still bringing value to their information resources with fewer staff and limited budgets.

6. Talking to product representatives from organizations who support the conference…and offer amazing tools to help us succeed.

5. Meeting members from our community here at InfoAdvisors, in person. I’ve known some of you for more than 15 years and it’s nice to get a chance to thank you for for contributions, face to face.

4. Hearing John Zachman talk about airplanes, frameworks, and life. For the 325th time. And it never gets old.

3. Meeting with industry thought leaders.

2. Networking with the best and the brightest of our profession.

1. Learning from others, no matter what hat they wear or how many years they’ve been working in the field. I learn something new during every session, every break, every keynote. I can’t wait.

What are you looking forward to at #EDW10?

Technorati Tags: EDW10,Enterprise Data World,Top 10

Rudy’s Rutabaga and Getting the Right Stuff Done

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:57:00 GMT

Here at chez López Drysdale, we've had some minor triumphs this month. One reminded me of some sort of Secrets of Consulting story:

We've lived in this house for about 14 years. Our kitchen was last renovated in the 70s. We have the same cooktop featured in The Brady Bunch kitchen. Hanging over that cooktop was a hulking, home-made, wooden monstrosity of a vent and light system that ended right at forehead level. It has put dents in many a head, too many times. The fan in it screamed out like a jet fan tumbling bowling balls, so we never used the fan. We hated that thing.

Last week the light fixture started to go. We could have replaced the horrible fluorescent light fixture...but we decided it was time to get out the 8-pound fix-all and take down the whole thing. It took about 20 minutes to take it down and was very satisfying. Now in the huge open space over the kitchen island where we installed a modern lighting system that will give us more effective lighting.

Why the heck didn't we do this 13.9 years ago? It would have saved a lot of headaches, conceptual and physical. It would have made hours and hours of time spent in the kitchen more enjoyable for many people. That started me thinking: how many other annoyances could we easily take out of our lives to make our overall quality of life improve? Or save time for other activities? I think because there were always "more important" things to be done, we never took care of this Big Rock. But now that the dang thing is gone, I realized that it's removal should have been more important that those other things.

Rudy's Rutabaga Rule reminds me that when I get rid of my number one problem, my second problem gets a promotion. There are more annoyances to move out the way, but seriously, let's not use that to keep us from removing #1 on a regular basis.

This week I had many very important tasks to complete. But along the way, I invested time in moving some minor annoyances out of the way. I wrote some macros to automate some tasks (automatically printing all the submodels in a data model, automatically producing some definition reports, helping to get a repository up and running, etc.). Now that I’ve solved those annoyances, I’ve freed up a few hours every week to work on my “real” job. Even though solving these minor annoyances was not part of my official to-do list, I had to do them to allow me the luxury of getting real work done later.

I’m convinced that I need to spend a few hours each week making my work more efficient. I could have waited until I has a big chunk of free time to solve all my problems, but I’m guessing those big chunks of free time are coming along any time soon.

What minor annoyances are becoming major time-sucks in your day? Could you or someone on your team help remove those annoyances? If you spend just 15 minutes a day you the return on your investment can be significant. Don’t let your major deliverables keep you from working on minor deliverables that can pay off significantly over time.

Amazing what an old 1970s kitchen design feature can teach you about software development, isn’t it?

Technorati Tags: Secrets of Consulting,Rudy's Rutabaga,Problem,Solving,Annoyances

Trolls, Burdens, and Happiness.. Oh My!

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:12:41 GMT

Many of you have been members of our communities since we started them more than a decade ago. So you’ve seen over the years how great things can be when we collaborate and you’ve seen how bad it can be when things go down the tubes.

Fortunately, we have a great set of moderators to ensure that the worst of the worst postings don’t make it anywhere near your inbox. But from time to time we’d get posts that were more about attacking the other person that offering up constructive criticism about the content of a post.

There are different approaches to managing teams and communities when it comes to negative feedback versus personal attacks. Some of our members think that we should all have thick skins and learn to deal with personal attacks, while others support our position that posts that are not constructive should not be approved.

We need to realize that there are all types of people out there and we all get our self-actualization in many ways. Trolls (people who spend their day making insulting posts in blog comments, board posts, and mailing lists) try to lift themselves up by smashing others down. Others take a different approach - by taking risks, learning, and continuing to improve themselves.

I want to encourage everyone to stay in the latter group. And have compassion for those who haven't yet figured out how to improve themselves. You don't have to put up with insults to be compassionate, but you also shouldn’t carry those insults around. Whether they come from an online community or a team meeting, the best way to deal with them is to reject the thought, verbally or internally, and move on.

I think it must be a painful life having to find and point out mistakes or weaknesses in others in order to feel good. It’s such a burden, when we all have enough burdens to carry already.

As a community manager I know that for every person who posts, there are probably hundreds or thousands of others who learned something from your post.

Carry that with you, not the posts or comments of the people trying to push you down to prop themselves up.

Andy Leonard, a SQL Server Blogger, has a great series of blog posts on a similar topic. In his post, A Turning Point, he mentions some of his strategies of dealing with positive/negatives.

Andy's Secrets to Happiness

If you look around at work and life in general, there's plenty of things to discourage you. The above quote says to me "You have a choice about how you react." Personally, I've made a conscious decision:

Don't do misery.

I did some misery in the past and I think that's enough for one lifetime. From here on out, no more. When life hands me lemons I give them to my lovely bride Christy (Blog - @ChristyLeonard) and she makes a tasty lemony dessert out of them. Also:

Do not let people live rent-free in your head.

Sorry, them's the rules. If you're in there you either need to pay up or move out.

Check out his excellent series.

And don’t carry the burden that someone else has tried to put on your shoulders. You have enough to do already.

Technorati Tags: Burden,Community,Misery,Happiness

CA Modeling Global User Community Election Open - Again

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:58:10 GMT

If you followed my advice yesterday and voted for the CA Modeling Global User Community, you need to vote again as the election team has reset the votes to correct an error in the voting options.

The correction was around who is running for which position. Instead of two people running for VP of Communications, there are two people running for Enhancement Co-ordinator.

So get your vote out, again, to show support for the fine people who are willing to work on your behalf to make the CA modeling products meet your needs.

Board Positions and candidates:

President: Tom Bilcze

Vice President: Steve McMahon

Secretary: Daniel Dechichio

Treasurer: Francois C. Cartier

Vice President of Programs: Hanne Christensen

Enhancement Request Coordinator:

Garry Gramm
Huroye D Scott

Vice President of Communications: Luis-Ignacio Gonzalez

Cast your vote by clicking on VOTE

Voting closes February 15, 2010.

Technorati Tags: CA Modeling Global User Group,ERwin,CA

CA Modeling Global User Community Election Open Now

website@infoadvisors.com — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:27:57 GMT

I just received the call for votes for the CA Modeling GUC. Note that several of the people stepping up to fill these important positions are long time members of our community, too. Not only do those people help other ERwin users on our discussion boards, but they also are volunteering to give back to our CA community in a more formal manner. Kudos to them.

The full announcement is probably waiting in your inbox now. Highlights:

CA Modeling Global User Community

Dear Modeling Global User Community Members,

CA ERwin users in this Global User Community nominated these 8 candidates to form the Global User Community Modeling Board for 2010-2012 (effective March 01, 2010). We are now ready to have you, as Modeling Global User Community members, cast your votes.

Board Positions and candidates:

President: Tom Bilcze

Vice President: Steve McMahon

Secretary: Daniel Dechichio

Treasurer: Francois C. Cartier

Vice President of Programs: Hanne Christensen

Enhancement Request Coordinator: Garry Gramm

Vice President of Communications:

Huroye D Scott

Luis-Ignacio Gonzalez

Cast your vote by clicking on VOTE

Voting closes February 15, 2010.

I had a hard time finding the candidate profiles, so here’s a more direct link: http://causergroups.ca.com/UserGroups/NewsItem.aspx?ID=397&NEWSID=4166

I also invite anyone running for these positions to post to our ERwin group about their candidacy.

Vote now!

Technorati Tags: CA ERwin Data Modeler,Voting,CA Global User Group,PLC

Advanced Data Modeling course is now available online

Karen Lopez - karen@Infoadvisors.com — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:29:23 GMT

I received this notification recently from my friend Gord Everest. It’s a bit late in posting (the first class was last week), but it’s good to know that advanced courses are making their way online.

Finally, the premier course in database design at the University of Minnesota is available online to the IT/IS professional community.

If you are a practicing (or aspiring) data architect/modeling professional, you owe it to yourself to check into this educational opportunity. Both new students and experienced working professionals have found this course to be very worthwhile. It can be a real boost to your career. Students report back that they soon became a recognized expert to whom other data modelers would come for help. They are able to recognize poorly designed databases, and to develop good conceptual data models (a stage before ER/Relational modeling). The course also covers how to conduct database design project meetings, and present data models to business users so they can understand them.

The course consists of 15 weekly lectures of 2 credit hours each, along with practical design exercises/assignments and quizzes. It is actually recorded in conjunction with a face-to-face class. Unlike more traditional online courses or webinars, here the online delivery results in a more effective and engaging learning experience. Being able to view the lectures anywhere online at work or at home gives you considerable flexibility in arranging your schedule each week.

Taught by Dr. Gordon Everest, this course has been well received by students and data management professionals alike. Student ratings are consistently high. The concepts and techniques are difficult to learn by reading a book alone. The class first solidifies your understanding of the traditional ER/Relational database design approach. Then you learn a much better way to do data modeling using Object Role Modeling (ORM).

The course begins 2010 January 21 and runs for 15 weeks in lock step with the live course. For further information go to: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~geverest/DModCourse.html

There you will find details of costs, how to register; course conduct, content, and schedule; the instructor bio; readings list; and information about the approach to online delivery. For any questions, send an email to: geverest@umn.edu .

FOR DAMA:

If you are planning to be at the DAMA Enterprise Data World conference March 14-18, you will have an opportunity to hear Dr. Everest conduct a workshop entitled “Normalization: the Achilles heel of Data Modeling.”

--
-- Gordon Everest - Visit my new website:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~geverest
----------------------------------------------------------
Gordon C. Everest, Professor Emeritus and Adjunct
Database- Design, Administration, and Management
University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

Technorati Tags: Advanced Data Modeling,Course,Distance Learning

No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends: 5 Architecture Tips from It’s a Wonderful Life.

website@infoadvisors.com — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:11:21 GMT

It’s a Wonderful Life is a part of many a holiday tradition. While most of you probably know this as a Christmas film, the links to the Christmas holiday are fairly weak. There’s an angel, some snow, and a background Christmas tree with a bell. Other than that, the story itself could take place at any time of the year. So if you’d put off seeing this film because you think it is all happy, shiny, Christmas cheer-ish, you need to think again.

George Bailey is a protagonist in a small town, Bedford Falls, located in upstate New York. He finds himself on the brink of financial ruin due to no fault of his own. He goes to visit the town big wig, Henry Potter, to get a loan. Potter tells him that with no equity in his life insurance policy, he’s “worth more dead than alive.” In a fit of despair, George decides to sacrifice his life so that his family and company (The Bailey Building and Loan) can survive. However, his plans are sidetracked by Clarence, his guardian angel. George rambles that he wished he’d never been born. Sounds pretty dark, doesn’t it? Not that Christmas-y at all. Clarence sees this as a great opportunity to show George just what a great impact he has had on not just his community, but on the world.

So George is shown what his family, friends, town and world would be like if he’d never been born. The new town is called “Pottersville”, after the antagonist Mr. Potter. It’s not a good thing. Clarence tells him:

“Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?”

and

“No man is a failure who has friends.”

The “feel good” part of the film is when George gets to return to the world he wished he’d never been born into. I’ll leave the assignment up to you to see how this all happens and how George and him family do once he returns.

I’ve seen this film at least 50 times in my life, perhaps even more. In fact, most people would probably think that I’m a bit obsessed with this whole story. To which I say: everyone needs a hobby. This just happens to be one of mine.

So what does this have to do with architecture and data management? I think plenty.

Enterprise-class projects can’t be done by one person. No one is a failure who has good team mates who collaborate well. You don’t have to be friends with them, or even like them that much. But you do have to find a way to collaborate with them.
Architecture done well can have all kinds of impacts elsewhere. Each architect’s work touches so many other parts of the architecture. When it isn’t there, it leaves an awful hole…to be filled by a non-architect to do. One small great architecture component can have huge impacts on solution quality for a long time in the future. When George is a kid, he saves his brother Harry’s life. But in the Pottersville world, Harry dies. Clarence tells George: Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry. If you aren’t there to create the architecture, or if the architecture you create isn’t used, then the good stuff it could deliver won’t be there when it is needed.
Fastest isn’t always “bestest”. In running George and Clarence out of his Pottersville bar, Nick the Bartender explains what works in the bad world: Hey look, mister - we code fast here for people who want to get lots of stuff done fast, and we don't need any characters around to give the joint "atmosphere". Is that clear, or do I have to slip you my left for a convincer? Well, I paraphrased that quote. But you get the point. Perhaps that was Nick’s collaboration method – using bouncers to run people out. Some people feel that data and other architectures are just there for some sort of religious checklist nirvana. It’s our jobs, as architects, to show them why architecture plays a key role project success. A left convincer might work in the short run, but the best way to get support for an architecture is have one that works. Good architectures need to be designed. Hacking away on a pseudo architecture is more Pottersville than Bedford Falls.
Architecture is more than drawing boxes and lines. George was fabulous at motivating people to do the right thing. The first way he did this was by living by his own principles. When put in a tight spot, he did the right thing. We architects need to do the same thing. We can’t tell development teams that they must treat data with respect and then treat our own meta data as if it weren’t important. This means ensuring that our architectures are managed with real tools, backed up, disaster-proofed, and generally treated as production data – which they are.
Sharing a vision is important. George was also great with expressing vision. He could get people to rally ‘round a cause by getting others to see what was in it for them. His monologue to Potter about why the Bailey Building and Loan should carry on after his father’s death is a classic. But his best was saved for Mary, in the moonlight:

George: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.

Mary: I'll take it. Then what?

George: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?

I’m still not sure how I’m going to work that line in with one my vision/architectural reviews, but I’m still thinking about it. Look for it on call soon.

For those of you who have seen IAWL and might appreciate some derivative works, I leave you with:

Carolyn’s Sill’s video and song “George Bailey”. This is one of my favourite holiday running songs for the tempo and overall good feelings it leaves me with. Her songs are available on iTunes. While you are watching this video, head over to iTunes and buy it. As an independent artist, she deserves the 99 cents for putting this together.

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Next up is Angry Alien’s It’s A Wonderful Life in 30 Seconds with Bunnies. A 30 second overview of the film. Be sure to click on the bunny outlines at the end to see some clips that couldn’t be part of the 30 second summary.

Finally, dear reader, I want you to know that you personally touch many lives by being part of our communities, both here and on Twitter. Happy Wonderful Life, everyone.

Technorati Tags: Wonderful Life,George Bailey,Architecture,Classic Film,Data Architecture,Collaboration

CA ERwin Data Modeler Enhancement Voting

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:57:55 GMT

As posted earlier, The CA Product Line Community (user group) is following a user-driven enhancement process. Voting is now open for the enhancements.

CA Modeling Global User Community

Once the voting is complete, the enhancements will be prioritized based on the votes. The prioritized list will be presented to ERwin Development and Product Managers at the CARE Conference that precedes CA World in May 2010. Prior to CARE, this same list will be sent out to GUC members for their information.

So to give a highlight of the time table:

- Voting process for all Global User Community Members takes place during the time frame shown below:

December 1, 2009 – January 8, 2010

Note that even though enhancements will be gathered from all users, only Global User Community members will vote on the priority of each. If a user wishes to vote during the enhancement process, they will need to join the Modeling Global User Community.

- Votes will be tabulated and the top items identified during the time frame below:

January 11, 2010 – February 28, 2010

- The results will be published to the members:

March 1, 2010

- The results will be presented to ERwin Development and Product Management at the CARE Conference (that is held in conjunction with CA World)

May 2010

http://www.casurveys.com/wsb.dll/156/GUCModelingER2010.htm

…and, yes, it is fine to post your requests for supporting votes to our ERwin discussion group. Make your business case there, as the supporting documents for each option don’t always allow enough room to give a good description of why the enhancement is needed.

Some of the requests that we’ve discussed in our groups are:

Complete compare enhancements
ERwin Navigator enhancements
Resizability of dialogs

Get Voting. This of this as your holiday wish list, CA-style. Be nice, vote, and you will get something good next year.

Technorati Tags: CA ERwin Data Modeler,enhancements,Complete Compare

Reading - Viral Data in SOA: An Enterprise Pandemic

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:19:14 GMT

Viral Data in SOA: An Enterprise Pandemic (9780137001804): Neal A. Fishman: Books

ISBN: 0137001800
ISBN-13: 9780137001804

I’m currently reading Neal Fishman’s Viral Data in SOA and really enjoying it. What great timing on the analogy he’s using: the fact that data tends to move around from person to system to system to person in a manner that isn’t always controllable, at least not the way most people think it is.

Fishman is the Program Director for Information and Integration Forensics at IBM. I’ve always said that data architecture is much more about forensics and archeology than it is about creating something from scratch. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying this work so much. Fishman is also one of the authors of Enterprise Architecture Using the Zachman Framework.

Watch for a full review once I’m finished.

Technorati Tags: Neal Fishman,IBM,Data Quality,SOA,Enterprise Architecture,Data Architecture,Data Modeling

More Mr. Blandings – A Consultant’s Assessment After the Fact

website@infoadvisors.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:01:00 GMT

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This clip is a bit longer than other ones.

Mr. Blandings has purchased a house, visioning

I love the scenes where outside consultants have been brought in to evaluate the new purchase, after the fact. My favourite quotes:

“Who needs engineers; it’s not a train you know?”

“Tear it down”

“I don’t see how we can bring it in for less than 12, or 12,500”

(This clip includes the previous clip about marking up the architectural diagrams at about 6 minutes in)

I do love, though, when business users work right on their own models, marking them up, making them their own. That’s my sign that modeling has truly been adopted in an organization.

Technorati Tags: Mr. Blandings,data model,enterprise architecture,requirements,consultant

I So Hope I Don’t Sound Like this: Turbo Encabulor

Karen Lopez - karen@Infoadvisors.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:50:00 GMT

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I work really hard when I present to business users to avoid the normal IT bafflegab / dujamakicey lingo, but I know that we struggle with this.

When I present at groups like DAMA (dama.org) , I sometimes get feedback that I’ve used a term, such as ERD or LDM that might not be clearly understood by everyone in the crowd. This is a tough call, as I want to make some assumptions about the audience at DAMA meetings so as to balance time allotted against the desire to deliver content that is useful for data architects. It’s very painful to have a presenter speak at a DAMA or IRMAC meeting and have him spend half the time explaining what a database is and what a data model is.

So while I do encourage attendees to ask if I use a term or concept that is unfamiliar to them, most won’t ask.

Remember to watch your turbo encabulators when collaborating with others. We are all guilty of this.

Thanks to @ldbjorh for the link to this video.

Technorati Tags: Video,turbo encabulator,jargon,TLA,business users