1st Day in Data Warehouse Lifecycle in Depth

My first day experience with Data Warehouse Lifecycle in Depth.

The instructor was Margy Ross who is one of the authors of the Data Warehouse Lifeycycle Toolkit. For the record, she signed my copy of the book :)

The first half of the day is about Project Management. I'm especially appreciative of this portion of the class. The main theme of Project Management is Business, Business, Business, and Business. What do "Customers" of the DW want? What do they want now? What can they possibly want in the future? I always knew that business requirements have to be a main driver of any DW project, but it’s nice to hear it articulated. After the class I immediately called up my PM, and let him know how much respect I have for him and his work. Thanks Dan :-)

The second part is Introduction to Dimensional Modeling. The concept is fairly simple, but it’s not jargonless. We also discussed some philosophical and historical debates of dimensional modeling and the bus architecture. Something nice to know if you're planning on going to a DW party (I'll be the first one there). My take on modeling is a lot like Shirky take on ontology. The modeler has to be good at mind reading and fortune telling, which Shirky argues is a hopeless fight if your source data is the internet. I hope that doesn't apply to enterprise data warehouses...

Since I already have experience in DW the first day was a lot of reviewing for me. The most valuable asset of the class is actually the students. I've met people from many industries, many parts of the country, and we're all here as students of Data Warehousing.