July 21, 2015 at 1:19 pm
Let's say you're given a task to create a database. You're not sure what they want to store. They're not sure what they want to store. You need to ask about the business process that the database will store information for, but they only have a fuzzy idea how that works as well. You need to ask questions to define what the requirements are for the database.
What are some general suggestions for questions you would ask to start this process rolling? I'd love to hear other people's ideas and experiences from the planning phase of their SDLC projects. I looked on the Internet, and the responses, blogs and articles I found weren't very IT-specific. I'm asking here because I'd like to hear ideas that are more specifically targeted to database projects.
Thanks!
July 21, 2015 at 2:28 pm
The most important thing is to treat it first as a data project. The database part comes later!
That is, start with logical data modeling. And stick with that with the business and data people. In the background you can translate the logical model into a physical model, but non-IT people don't need to know about that until the db(s) is(are) ready for use.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".
July 21, 2015 at 6:45 pm
Scott,
I totally agree that the logical model comes before the physical, but that wasn't exactly what I was asking. I'm going back even further before that. What are good questions to ask, the answers to which will form the foundation of which entities go into the logical model? For example, if you were building a data system for a travel agency:
Q: What sort of information needs to be tracked?
A: We track reservations for passengers on particular flights out of certain airports.
(Reservations, passengers, flights, and airports would become entities)
Q: What sort of reservation information do you need to store?
A: The airline, the flight number, the departure and arrival dates and times, the seat number, the airport, etc.
(These become attributes of the Reservations entity)
Q: how do you reserve a seat?
A; It transfers to another system where it checks the seats for a particular flight, and returns available seats for customer selection.
(This can become a data flow)
Some other generic questions might be:
- How many people are going to be using this database?
- How frequently is the data utilized? For example, if there's certain reports they want, how often is the data needed? Once a month? once a day? real-time?
- How is data created in this system? Web form? Phone order? Smoke signals? etc.
I work in manufacturing, not in travel, but you get the general idea. What questions do you ask in a preliminary interview with the stakeholders, so you can find out which entities, attributes, relationships and data flows need to be created in the logical model?
This is one of those brainstorming "no wrong answers" type of questions, so feel free to contribute your thoughts!
Thank you
July 22, 2015 at 9:28 am
Often a good start is to look at current input and display screens, as well as reports, but just to identity needed data elements, not to copy the format/layout.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".
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