I generally don't make resolutions, especially at the end of a year. I'm more of a "make small changes, every day, that will make a big difference over a year" type person.  For blogs and communities, resolution making is a tradition and we all know that the holiday season is about traditions. So, dear data modelers, here are the resolutions I'd hope we'd all make for 2016. You wouldn't need to do all of them.  Just pick the ones you need to do. Make some of your own, then a plan to ma...

I was with a client for lunch one day and we asked the server "What do you have on tap?"  She was gone quite a long time, but came back and said "Beer."  It turned out she was right.  But her answer was not that helpful. One of the odd parts of every new project I have to deal with is getting everyone to understand that the question "Can you help us with a data model" results in me asking. "What do you mean by data model?" That's right, I have to ask team members what a data...

Just in case you've been head-down into your data models for too long, in the US the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Traditionally this is a day for massive sales and steep discounts to ensure that Americans start their holiday shopping with gusto.  Over the years, Black Friday has been creeping earlier and earlier in the week and now starts on Thursday for some of the most desperate shoppers. These originally were brick and mortar store sales, but these days Black Friday ...

Last month I developed a whitepaper and a webinar on data modeling in an Agile environment.  These works focused on what we as data modelers can do to ensure that data models (and therefore data modelers) continue to be valued on IT projects.  This blog series touches on the key takeaways from these works.   Webinar: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile Whitepaper: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile-WP   Sprints   In the SCRUM methodo...

  Last month I developed a whitepaper and a webinar on data modeling in an Agile environment.  These works focused on what we as data modelers can do to ensure that data models (and therefore data modelers) continue to be valued on IT projecs.  This blog series touches on the key takeaways from these works.   Webinar: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile Whitepaper: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile-WP   Documentation   The A...

At EDW this year Ron Huizenga, Product Manager for ER/Studio, and I led a SIG discussion about working on agile projects...as a data modeler. As usual, this resulted in a lot of frustration being voiced from data modelers about: Not being wanted on the voyage Being treated like obstacles to getting stuff done Being confused by terminology and expectations that differ from 1980s approach to data modeling Being frustrated because perfectly good data models are ignore Being frustrated becaus...

Are you tired of people finding errors in your data models once they go to build an application on top of that fine database you designed for them?  Would you like to be in on a secret that others have to spend thousands of hours in the gym to accomplish?  Well I have the solution for you.  All you have to do is call in the next 7:00 minutes with your credit card number handy.   Hold on.   I first heard about this trick during one of my EDW sessions on database desig...

Karen Lopez 10 Physical Data Modeling Blunders from Karen Lopez One of my favourite presentation themes is talking about gotchas, blunders and mistakes.  Not because I like to focus on the negative, but because there are some wonderful resources out there telling modelers how to model, and so few out there telling us what NOT to do based on lessons learned. In this slide deck, I focus on physical modeling gotchas based on my reviews of hundreds of great data models that just missed the...

I spoke about agile methods, including Scrum, and data modeling in my Heart of Data Modeling webinar this month. One of the topics I touched upon was the concept of conflict and hostility between Data Modelers and Agile Developers.  We modelers have always experienced a bit of conflict with development teams due to the fact that our roles are measured and rewarded for conflicting outcomes.  Modelers are typically rewarded for ensuring data quality, for building models that are highly r...

Earlier this year I did a webinar for Embarcadero on where data modeling fits in the big data and NoSQL worlds. You can still watch that webinar recording if you missed the live event. I've created a shorter, more targeted version of the slide deck. You can click below to access it. TL;DR: there's still an important role for data models and data modelers in big data and NoSQL projects.  If someone on your team thinks otherwise, they may be doing it wrong....