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The Agile Data (AD) method defines a collection of
strategies that IT professionals can apply in a wide variety of situations to
work together effectively on the data aspects of software systems.
This isn’t to say that AD is a “one size fits all” methodology.
Instead, consider AD as a collection of
techniques and
philosophies that will enable IT
professionals within your organization to work together effectively when it
comes to the data aspects of software-based systems.
Modern software development processes - such as
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD),
Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, and Team Software Process (TSP) -- are all iterative and
incremental (evolutionary)
in nature. Every single one of them. Some modern approaches, in
particular XP and Scrum, are agile in nature (for the sake of simplicity, let's
define agile software development as a highly collaborative and evolutionary
approach). Traditional approaches to the data-oriented aspects of software
development, however, tend to be serial, not evolutionary and certainly not
agile, in nature. This is a serious problem.
Data has been an important aspect of every single business
application which I have ever built. Then again, so have business rules,
user interfaces, networks, and a slew of other issues. My experience is
that left to their own devices software developers will usually struggle to get
the data stuff right, and will often make questionable decisions from an
enterprise data point of view. My experience is also that many data
professionals are difficult to work with, often because they are stuck in their
"serial ways" but also because they have little or no experience following
modern software development techniques. These two observations reflect the
cultural impedance mismatch between the two groups, a problem which is often
over-shadowed by the
technical impedance mismatch between the two technologies (object-based and
relational) which the two groups work with.
I believe that we need to find ways to work together effectively,
and that there are five fundamental tasks which IT organizations must undertake:
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Adopt a new philosophical foundation. The
Agile Data Method, and the supporting agile database techniques, describe an approach that
has a chance at succeeding because it describes ways that people actually work
in practice. It’s not just a
collection of academic theories that sound great.
The heart of the Agile Data method is in its philosophies
and its roles.
The
philosophies sound simple yet in practice have significant implications
when you act on them: my experience is that rethinking your approach to
software development and reworking your organization's culture to succeed at
the software development game will prove to be difficult in practice.
-
Help both developers and data professionals need to adopt
evolutionary, if not agile, database techniques. This includes
agile data
modeling,
database
refactoring,
database
regression testing,
test-driven development (TDD), and
encapsulating database access appropriately. We must all recognize we
need to become
more agile, that we can take an
agile approach
to modeling and documentation, that
data models
don't drive object models (and vice versa), that we need
new tools, and that
we should work in our our separate
development
sandboxes. Adopting common
agile database
best practices is also a very good idea.
-
Help developers learn fundamental data techniques.
This includes
data modeling,
mapping objects
to RDBs (O/R mapping), and
working with legacy data.
Developers should also understand
how to choose a primary
key strategy for a table,
relational database fundamentals,
XML,
referential
integrity and shared business logic,
how to
retrieve objects from an RDB,
how to implement
reports, security
access control,
transaction control, and
concurrency control.
-
Help data professionals to learn fundamental development
techniques. This includes learning the basics of
object
orientation and the
Unified
Modeling Language (UML) and how to
data
model using the UML.
-
Take an agile approach to enterprise efforts.
Your
enterprise architecture and
enterprise administration (including operational data administration)
groups need to become more agile to succeed in modern IT environments.
It's not only possible to take an agile enterprise approach, I believe it's
preferable to traditional traditional techniques because it's more
responsive to the actual needs of your organization.
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