Business-oriented Data Modelling Masterclass

Balancing Engagement, Agility, and Complexity

This workshop on November 18-20, 2024 is fully booked. The next edition will run April 7-9, 2025, listed on our homepage.

This three-day interactive workshop combines the core content from two popular data modelling offerings by Alec Sharp – Business Oriented Data Modelling and Advanced Data Modelling. Suitable for both new and experienced modellers, this course first explores unique techniques for rapidly developing high-quality models while maintaining the involvement of business professionals. It then provides hands-on practice with skills in more challenging topics – generalisation, recursion, subtyping, modelling time and history, presenting models to non-technical groups, the connection between E-R modelling and dimensional modelling, and many more. In all cases, the underlying philosophy is that a data model is a description of a business, not of a database.

Three main themes are explored in a very practical way:
1. The foundations of data modelling – what a data model really is, and maximising its relevance
2. The human side of data modelling – improving communication skills and engaging the business
3. The complex side of data modelling – getting better at modelling difficult situations

The workshop

After introducing entity-relationship modelling from a non-technical perspective, the basic components of a data model are thoroughly covered – entities, relationships, attributes, and rules. Practical tips, quality checklists, and warnings of common pitfalls are also shared. Through hands-on work, the workshop demonstrates why there is a global surge of interest in data modelling, especially conceptual data modelling or “concept modelling.” It also show how a concept model can be a great platform on which to develop application requirements (use cases and services) and to identify business processes.
A repeatable method for developing a data model is emphasised.

The first day of the workshop gets both new and experienced modellers to the same baseline on terminology, conventions, and the unique, business-friendly approaches this course provides. For the next two days, the course moves on to more advanced situations, such as the enforcement of complex business rules, handling recurring patterns, satisfying regulatory requirements to model time and history, capturing complex changes and corrections, dealing with existing databases or packaged applications, and integrating with dimensional modelling.

The Business-Oriented Data Modelling workshop by Alec Sharp is generally evaluated by the attendees with an overall rating of 9 or better.

Learning objectives

On workshop completion, participants will be able to:

• Apply a variety of techniques that support the active participation and engagement of business professionals and subject matter experts
• Use entity-relationship modelling to depict facts and rules about business entities at different levels of detail, including conceptual (overview) and logical (detailed) models
• Learn an easy, language-oriented approach to initiating development of a data model
• Recognise the four basic patterns in data modelling, and when to use them
• Effectively use definitions and assertions (“rules”) as part of data modelling
• Use an intuitive approach to data normalisation within an entity-relationship model
• Apply various techniques for discovering and meeting additional requirements
• Read a data model, and communicate with specialists using the appropriate terminology
• Understand “the four Ds of data modelling” – definition, dependency, demonstration, and detail
• Be able to implement lists, trees, and networks with recursive relationships
• Know how and when to use supertypes/subtypes (generalisation/specialisation) vs. roles vs. both
• Combine subtyping and recursion, as appropriate, to model difficult rules
• Recognise the “category vs. types vs. instances” problem, and model reference data properly
• Model “vectors” (attibutes that repeat a fixed number of times) properly – entity or attribute?
• Use multi-way associations, associations of associations, and relationship constraints to handle complex rules
• Handle circular relationships and cyclic dependencies properly with advanced normal forms
• Model history, corrections, and time-dependent business rules with “temporal data models”
• Understand the connection between analytic data structures (star schema or dimensional models) and ER models
• Rapidly develop a first-cut dimensional model from a well-structured ER model
• Prepare and deliver a data model review presentation.

Prerequisites

None, although an understanding of information systems concepts may be helpful.

Who is it for?

Roles that are currently benefitting from this workshop include:

• Specialist data modellers, data architects, data analysts, and DBAs who wish to hone their skills.
• Business analysts, business architects, enterprise architects, and application architects
• Application / solution developers (especially on Agile teams)
• Business professionals, Subject Matter Experts, and Project / Programme Managers involved in the analysis, design, and development (or selection and configuration) of a system.
• BI (Business Intelligence) professionals, DW (Data Warehouse) professionals, big data specialists, data scientists, analytics specialists, and data lake implementers.

Discount for DAMA members

Members of the DAMA NL Dutch chapter as well as Belux or International chapter are eligible for ten percent discount.

At the top of this page you can download the PDF brochure of this workshop.