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...

On April 28, 2015, Embarcadero announced the XE7 release of our award-winning ER/Studio data modeling and architecture suite, with new features to improve agility and collaboration in enterprise data landscapes. Let’s highlight them, and for more details and a demonstration, you can watch the on-demand webinar from April 30th. ER/Studio continues to incorporate new capabilities and features to improve the user experience, enhance the data architecture, and address emerging industry technologies...

When we review the evolution of new data architecture and development methodologies, along with the corresponding changes in corporate culture, we can see that there have been numerous approaches over the years. In the earlier days of traditional / waterfall processes for data modeling, there was a more rigid organizational structure with data modelers, programmers, and system analysts. Agile methodologies emerged in an attempt to address the shortcomings of traditional practices. The focus chan...

Ron Huizenga, ER/Studio Product Manager, gave an interview on SSWUGtv to discuss Agile data modeling. Data modeling has evolved from strictly up-front relational designs (waterfall methodology) to interactive and integrated models that respond to business and IT needs. Data professionals must adapt, be flexible and address things along with way. Data modelers and DBAs need to quickly respond to changes in short development cycles; they need to know why they’re doing it, and tie it back to the re...

Ron Huizenga, ER/Studio Product Manager, gave an interview on SSWUGtv to discuss data architecture challenges that impact us all as data professionals. These key challenges include: New methodologies Big data Multiple diverse data sources Data quality Business focus on usage of the data With many different variables and moving parts, today’s data environments required a dedicated process to manage them effectively. The best approach is still to define a design up front to ensure you ha...

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...