Process Analysis Basics

Thom Harrington Senior IT Analyst SAFECO Corporation

Eva Smith Instructor Edmonds Community College

Why do managers see process and data as mutally exclusive approaches to systems requirements and design? In truth, they are complimentary, and both must be performed and correlated to assure successful implementation. Understandng process is paramount to understanding system design requirements – front-end user interfaces as wlel as back-end infrastructure and middleware.

This presentation will provide a context for process analysis techniques and models. It will also provide an overview of these techniques and models created throughout requirements analysis, and from the different perspectives of the Zachman Framework.

The attendee can expect to leave with a basic understanding of what techniques to apply, when to apply them and who to involve.

Thom Harrington is a Senior IT Analyst at SAFECO Corporation in Seattle, WA. His work is currently focused on business requirements and business systems architecture and design. Thom has also been active in process design and improvement, creating and implementing system develop frameworks and addressing data quality, most recently on SAFECO’s systems that manage relationships with independent insurance agencies. He is an advisory board member for Edmonds Community College Data Base Technologies program and teaches process and data integration at the University of Washington’s certificate program in Data Resource Management. Mr. Harrington is the Vice President of Financial Services for DAMA International and President of the Seattle chapter. Mr. Harrington graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree concentrating in Information Systems and Finance in 1994.

Eva Smith is a full-time faculty member at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, WA, where she teaches systems analysis, database design, modeling, and business information management. In a previous life, she was I.S. Manager of Application Development for United Advertising Publications and a Systems Engineer at EDS. Over the past 15 years, she has held a progression of I.T. positions in all phases of systems lifecycle development, managed teams and led analysis efforts for small applications to enterprise-wide systems. In the early 1990s, her process-modeling journey began when she was assigned to the strategic planning consulting group at EDS. There she had the opportunity to work with some brilliant business consultants and gain valuable experience in business analysis methods and tools. In 1996, she completed the certificate program in Data Resource Management at the University of Washington and later returned to teach the process and data integration course in 1999. In her current role, Ms. Smithhas been instrumental in designing and implementing an accredited Associate of Technical Arts (ATA) Degree program in Database Information Technologies at Edmonds Community College. She is an active member of DAMA and other professional associations, and has served on the board of the Seattle DAMA chapter since 1997.

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Data Management and ICCP Certification

Patricia Cupoli
DAMA Director to the ICCP
DAMA International

This presentation discusses the DAMA International benefit of providing certification to DAMA members and the industry. DAMA has been working with the Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals (ICCP) since 1993 in the area of data professional certification. IT Certification is defined, and the history, marketplace and trends for certification are examined. An overview of the ICCP is presented along with the new DAMA data management professional certification efforts in data management, data warehousing and database administration. Reasons for certification are discussed for those wondering whether to certify or not.

Patricia Cupoli, CCP, has been an IT professional for over twenty years, concentrating in the areas of Data Management, Enterprise Modeling (business process and data) for Business Re-engineering and Process Improvement, Metadata Solutions and Repositories, Data Warehousing, Project Management, IT Strategic Planning, IT Course Development and Training, and Librarianship / Information Science. She was the project manager for the ICCP Data Resource Management (DRM) Specialty Exam, and currently is the project manager for the DAMA / ICCP Data Warehousing, Data Management and Database Administration Exams. She is a past president of DAMA International, DAMA Chicago, and DAMA Philadelphia / Delaware Valley.

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Putting User Language On Data Models

Joseph Maguire
Consultant, Author, Trainer
Independent

Conceptual modelers must reconcile the stark contrast between the user's desire to employ their naturally vague language and the software developer's need for rigor. Thus, merely saying "employ the user's language" is not enough. A set of modeling and naming conventions that admits user vocabulary while disallowing the customary ambiguities of natural language is proposed. Specific conventions and guidelines are presented with examples. Some of these will be familiar, although their role in eliminating ambiguity is often overlooked. Some of the proposed conventions/guidelines will be new to many modelers. Still others will be in direct contrast to existing naming standards.

Joe Maguire is a data modeler and author of dozens of industry and trade publications about data management products, modeling tools, and modeling techniques and notations. He is co-designer of the user-focused data modeling notation described in Mastering Data Modeling: A User Driven Approach by John Carlis and Joseph Maguire (Addison-Wesley, 2000). He has been an employee or consultant for Microsoft, Digital, Lotus, US WEST, Bachman Information Systems, and several startups. His books -- some of which have absolutely nothing to do with computers -- have received favorable notices from a diverse set of media, including The Data Access Newsletter, The Mathematica Journal, The Boston Sunday Globe, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

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Orientation to Geographic Information Systems and Geospatial Data Management

Mike Walls
Software Engineering Manager
PlanGraphics, Inc.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was once a niche technology, but is increasingly becoming integrated into the rest of the enterprise data resource. In local governments, an estimated 80% of all data sets include a geospatial component. In the private sector, customers, suppliers, facilities, and transportation work processes all have major geospatial elements.

GIS technology evolved separately from other information management technologies. Now, improved GIS and RDBMS data handling technologies and increasingly urgent business needs are forcing a convergence in these two aspects of data management.

Despite the increasing importance of GIS and geospatial data, however, many data administration professionals do not know very much about this technology or these types of data. This workshop will provide necessary orientation for data architects, data modelers, and software engineers in order to incorporate geospatial information into their projects.

The fundamental challenge is that geospatial data adds whole new layers of complexity in addition to those data administrators are accustomed to dealing with when incorporating more traditional data types within the DBMS. For example, GIS features have geometry and explicit locational coordinates expressed in specialized and quite technical units of measure. They often have topological characteristics and relationships that further extend the bounds of data management.

Mike Walls is Software Engineering Manager for PlanGraphics, Inc., a world leading consulting firm specializing in GIS and its integration into enterprise information technology and management. He specializes in project management and data architecture issues, but still works on complex data modeling and database design challenges as needed. Prior to joining PlanGraphics, he worked for over 20 years in local government as a policy analyst, city planner, applications programmer and systems administrator. Mr. Walls has academic degrees in anthropology, public administration, and computer science. He has also recently completed 28 hours towards a doctorate in geography. He has over 17 years of hands-on experience designing and implementing GIS. In 1999, URISA published his “Data Modeling” in their Quick Start monograph series.

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Building and Using Taxonomies

Malcolm Chisholm
Senior Consultant
Askget.com Inc

In order to understand and use information stored in databases it has to be categorized. The result is that taxonomies -- schemes for classifying data -- get built into most databases, and are used for reporting, and to drive business rules. However, they are often constructed without a great deal of thought. The result can be that the taxonomy is very difficult to use, only works in a partial manner, or does not provide the results it was designed for. This presentation (by a trained biological taxonomist) shows how to design a taxonomy as a tool, and what it takes to implement it. Examples are drawn from biological sciences where fierce debates on how to use taxonomy have raged for over 200 years.

Malcolm Chisholm has more than 20 years of experience in IT, with particular focus on extracting metadata from data models for use in software applications. A large part of this his work focuses on using metadata to drive business rule engines. He is the author of the recent book, Managing Reference Data in Enterprise Databases (Morgan Kaufmann, 2000) and maintains the Web site www.refdataportal.com. Malcolm has worked in a number of different industries including manufacturing, finance, and government. He can be contacted at mchisholm@refdataportal.com

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How to Talk Like an Oracle DBA

Roseanne Baker
Decision Support Analyst
Duke Energy Gas Transmission

Confused by v$views? Wondering what a nonstandard block size is? Not sure when to refresh a materialized view? This crash course will have you talking the talk and walking the walk. This session will explore terminology associated with the Oracle 9i, the latest version of one of the world's leading database platforms. Through analogy, animation, and gentle coaxing, you will learn database administrator lingo in a non-threatening environment.

This session will help attendees to feel more comfortable when talking to database administrators. They will learn about new features in Oracle 9i that are of interest to the data resource community.

Roseanne Baker is employed as a Decision Support Analyst at Duke Energy Gas Transmission, in Canada. Prior to this, she was a database analyst, working with both Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. She has presented DBA topics at the Detroit Oracle User Group convention and at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Roseanne dived into a career in IT after thirteen years of teaching English to Ojibway students in northwestern Ontario. She maintains that it is easier to explain spfiles to a roomful of caffeine-charged database architects than it is to explain onomatopoeia to a roomful of hormone-charged fourteen year olds.

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Using UML for Data Modeling

Paul Dorsey
President
Dulcian, Inc.

Many people question whether any part of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) can be used for data modeling. Some have suggested creating a new tool to explicitly support data modeling. However, with some extensions, the UML can be used very effectively to design databases.

This session will provide an overview of UML class diagram syntax as it pertains to data modeling and a discussion of how each drawing element can be implemented in a relational database.

One of the most challenging problems in mapping an object-oriented design into a relational database is how to implement generalizations. The traditional mapping of each class to a table generates logically correct but unusable systems. Redundant storage of inherited attributes along the inheritance path will be discussed as a strategy that allows modelers to use generalization without hesitation.

The speaker will also cover how logical Primary Key specification is still useful in class diagram data models and how the rules of normalization can be adapted to support object-oriented database design.

Dr. Paul Dorsey is the founder and president of Dulcian, Inc. an Oracle consulting firm specializing in business rules and web based application development. Paul is the author of five Oracle Press books on Designer, Developer, JDeveloper and Database Design, which have been translated into 6 languages. He is President of the New York Oracle Users Group and the Executive Editor of IOUG's SELECT Journal. Last year, Dr. Dorsey was honored by IOUG as volunteer of the year and by Oracle as one of the six initial honorary Certified Oracle Masters. Paul is also the founder and Chairperson of the ODTUG Business Rules Symposium, now in its third year.

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Project Management for Data Management Projects

Shelley Lieberman
Director of Strategic and Systems Planning
Mathtech, Inc.

Much of data management work is performed in projects - those work efforts that have defined beginning and end dates, clients, tasks, deliverables, and clients. This session describes how to best manage these projects to achieve successful tangible results. The project management session is broken down into:

Within these categories, project management deliverables will be discussed, including producing a charter and project definition, project organization roles and responsibilities, developing a project plan, developing communication plans, and producing status reports. Real life examples will be presented describing from a project management perspective what went well, and what needed to be improved. Project management templates will also be presented.

Ms. Lieberman has over 25 years of experience in management consulting, information architecture, business process redesign, SDLC methodology, and facilitation. Ms. Lieberman earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Performance Psychology from Ohio State University, and a Masters Degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Ohio State University. Ms. Lieberman has directed projects in Information Strategic Planning and Business Area Analysis for various industries; such as Financial Services, forestry, government, and utilities. She has also been project leader for many process improvement studies, and facilitated strategic planning sessions. In addition, she has directed Data Administration and end-user consulting groups. She is well-versed in data and process modeling methodologies, and has developed methodology rollout plans for company IT departments. Based upon her consulting experience, Ms. Lieberman is also an accomplished course developer and instructor. Topics include: facilitation, logical data modeling, SDLC methodology, and project management. Her extra activities include the Philadelphia and New Jersey DAMA chapters, LaSalle MIS Advisory Board, and Toastmasters International.

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CMM & Data Management

Peter Aiken
Founding Director
Institute for Data Research

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was originally developed at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University, as a tool for the assessment, measurement and comparison of software and systems development practices. Recently, a number of independent initiatives have started to think about ways to incorporate data and metadata management practices into the existing CMM structures. Some have even suggested a specific Data Management CMM (DMCMM) could be developed. The SIG will discuss a number of these efforts, their status and see if the groundswell of interest in a DMCMM is likely to bear fruit.

Peter Aiken is Founding Director of the Institute for Data Research and an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research has widely explored the area of data engineering and its relationship to systems and business reengineering. He is the author of Data Reverse Engineering and Clive Finkelstein's co-author of Corporate Information Portals (McGrawHill 1996/99). A new collaboration titled Achieving EAI with Service-Based Architectures (ISBN:0471415154 Wiley) is due out in 2002. Related research publications have appeared in the IBM Systems Journal, IEEE Software and many others. He is a member of ACM, and the IEEE (Senior Member), has been a DAMA International Advisor since 1999 and received their 2001 International Achievement Award. He has lectured internationally on these and related topics.

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Data Stewardship SIG

Robert Seiner
Publisher, TDAN.com
Principal, KIK Consulting

Data stewardship, or accountability for the management of data resources, continues to be a topic of interest to most organizations. This special interest group will focus on the who’s, what’s, why’s and how’s of implementing a data stewardship program. Come learn from others that have started down this path and demonstrated success. This SIG has previously demonstrated lively interaction and interesting discussions at the DAMA International Symposium. The following will be discussed:

Robert (Bob) S. Seiner is the owner and principal of KIK Consulting Services. Mr. Seiner is recognized in the IT industry for his depth of knowledge and involvement in the field of business intelligence, knowledge/content management, stewardship & governance, metadata management, data warehousing and data management. Mr. Seiner is the publisher of an internationally recognized internet publication focused on the management of knowledge, information and data as valued corporate assets. The Data Administration Newsletter (TDAN.com) attracts close to forty thousand visitors every month, and is a reputable and non-biased on-line source for information about the knowledge management and data management industries.

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ETL vs. EAI: A Comparison of Integration Approaches

Faisal Shah
Chief Technology Officer
Knightsbridge Solutions

EAI follows ETL as the latest category of data integration tools. Many organizations are tempted to address all of their integration needs through just one category of tool. At first, this seems like the most cost-effective and efficient way to address the integration issue. Unfortunately, the long-term costs of trying to solve ETL issues with EAI tools (and vice versa) can far outweigh the upfront costs. The two categories treat latency, unit of work granularity, meta data integration, third-party product integration, and other product dimensions differently.

An organization needs to address ETL and EAI holistically and at the same time understand that there are still significant differences between the tools and ways to approach integration projects. EAI and ETL tools continue to grow closer together, but there are still significant advantages to using each for its original purpose, and knowing how to leverage these will allow an integration project to deliver the right information at the right time and at the right cost.

Faisal Shah is a Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of the company. He possesses unparalleled technical depth in high-performance data solutions that employ scalable and parallel technologies. Faisal's focus on emerging technology solutions for big-data problems has led Knightsbridge to industry leadership in this specialized solution set. Faisal has implemented delivery solutions for companies in the consumer products, credit card, retail, insurance, and the rapidly growing e-business segments. Prior to his work at Knightsbridge, Faisal was an independent consultant and also held positions with two emerging software firms. During this period, he developed two software products that are still marketed, the Auto Tester product and a graphics product that helps furniture customers visualize various fabrics on their chosen furniture. Faisal holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Southern Methodist University.

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Data Warehouse and Knowledge Management at the Fraser Health Authority

Mark Wise Consultant Wise Consulting Inc.

Doug Redwood Knowledge Management Program Team Leader Fraser Health Authority

These are turbulent times for publicly funded health care in BC. In 2001 a new government embarked on a program to revitalize a health care system that was running out of resources. Fifty-two health regions were merged into six authorities to reduce overhead. Labor contracts were adjusted to allow flexibility and wards, beds and hospitals have been re-configured in the name of efficiency. Today, problems in staffing nurses and doctors have reached crisis proportions. Public funding has been frozen and there is an intense focus on business performance.

The FHA instituted a two pronged knowledge based approach to measure and improve regional performance. First, an initiative to focus on end to end business processes and identify their key performance measures. Second, to implement a data warehouse and BI technology to deliver measurement information to staff so they can meet new performance requirements. This is our story.

The presentation will cover:

Mark Wise is a consultant working in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has over 20 years experience in systems analysis, design, and application development. His consulting practice focuses on using well understood modeling techniques to help a business understand its data and deploy information where it is needed, in the form it is required. Mark has been architect and project manager for data warehouse projects in the retail and insurance industries as well as in public health care and government. He believes passionately that data warehouse projects can be spectacularly successful if we are careful to leverage our experience and core systems analysis and design skills.

Doug Redwood: For the past 3 years, Doug Redwood has been Manager of Information Integration and the program leader for Knowledge Management (KM) at the Fraser Health Authority. The purpose of the KM program is to develop and deploy solutions that enable frontline providers to make better use of information and knowledge in the pursuit of performance and quality improvements. Prior to working at the FHA, Doug spent 20 years as an Information Technology Planner for business and government in Canada.

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An Introduction to Use Cases, Including Tough Use Case Issues

Christine Mandracchia
Manager - Data Administration
American Re-Insurance Company

Use Cases are increasingly being used as the mechanism to convey business and system requirements during application development projects. In this presentation, Christine will cover a general introduction to Use Cases, including the Use Case Model and the main sections of a Use Case. She will discuss factors that make Use Cases harder to create than the technique initially appears. These factors are based upon her experiences as a data modeler participating as an object-oriented analyst on a RUP (Rational Unified Process) project, which involved the development of the object class model, the use cases, and other related artifacts through multiple iterations.

Christine Mandracchia is currently Manager - Data Administration at American Re-Insurance Company in Princeton, NJ. Christine has been an active participant on an object-oriented application development project using the RUP methodology for almost 3 years. On this project, she participated as an object-oriented analyst, developing the object class model, the use cases, and related project artifacts. Prior to assuming her current position, Christine was a consultant for many years, specializing in data analysis and logical data modeling, enterprise modeling, CASE and repository tool evaluations, and data quality assessment. She has provided significant meta data management support for the data administration and data warehousing environments of major corporations. Her meta data emphasis has been on requirements identification, mapping of those requirements to the meta data tool(s), integration of varying requirements and meta data content, and the development of the associated standards and procedures. She has published a chapter on Integrating Information System Data Models for the Handbook of Data Management by Auerbach Publications (1993); and a meta data tool framework in "Heart of the Warehouse" for Database Programming & Design (11/1996). She has previously presented on her experiences as a data modeler on a RUP project, and on the topics of dimensional modeling, Operational and Informational Subject Areas, and on Enterprise Meta Data Management to NJ DAMA, EDF, and other audiences. She has served on the board for NJ DAMA, and has almost 25 years of experience in the information systems field.

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To Laugh or to Cry? More Fundamental Fallacies in Database Management

Fabian Pascal
Analyst, Editor and Publisher
Database Debunkings

A lot of what is being said, written, or done in the information management field by vendors, the trade press and "experts" is increasingly confused, irrelevant, misleading, or outright wrong. The problems are so acute that, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, knowledge, practices and technology are actually regressing!

This presentation exposes more of the persistent misconceptions prevalent in the information/data management field and their costly practical consequences. Test yourself on your ability to see through the former and avoid the latter.

Fabian Pascal has a national and international reputation as an independent technology analyst, consultant, author and lecturer specializing in data management. He was affiliated with Codd & Date and for more than 15 years held various analytical and management positions in the private and public sectors, has taught and lectured at the business and academic levels, and advised vendor and user organizations on data management technology, strategy and implementation. Clients include IBM, Census Bureau, CIA, Apple, Borland, Cognos, UCSF, IRS. He is founder, editor and publisher of DATABASE DEBUNKINGS (dbdebunk.com), a web site dedicated to dispelling fundamental fallacies and flaws in the information management industry, where C.J. Date is a senior contributor. Author of three books, he has published extensively in most trade publications, including DM Review, Database Programming and Design, DBMS, Byte, Infoworld and Computerworld, and is contrarian columnist for the Journal of Conceptual Modeling, The Data Administration Newsletter (TDAN.com) and DBAzine.com. His third book, PRACTICAL ISSUES IN DATABASE MANAGEMENT serves as text for his seminars.