Key points:
* Data models, and similar-to data-models artifacts are relatively inert. They are not going to prod a BA through the business terms discovery process. That is why with structured systems analysis, one is told do process modeling first, creating a data dictionary, to among other things, discover what your business terms are. Then, once the terms have been discovered, the BA would move on to Fact Modeling (or Data Modeling).
* Business systems tend to be complex. In these situations, no one is going to be able to create one single-level big hunker Fact Model (or Data Model). Decomposition is needed to handle complexity. Data models and Fact models do not decompose downwards.
Tony
Tony,
Data Models and Data Dictionaries are systems artifacts, not business artifacts; they lead to databases.
A business term glossary exists whether you have a data model or not, and Fact Models are not Data Models, it is not a case of one or the other.
As hard as it may be to accept, systems-based methodologies do not adrress rules except as another part of a system, and that is the problem.
Have you looked at business rule approaches? or the SBVR standard for business vocabulary? If not, I would recommend looking into them, and see what you think. They do show how to build glossaries, fact models, rules... and how to implement them in automated form. I recommend anything by Ron Ross as a good place to start.
I recognize you are firm in your opinions, but give all this a chance and you will see the benefits.
David:
A business is a system whether it has any computers or not. So yes, data models and data dictionaries are system artifacts. So is a business glossary of terms. But none of these has to be related to a database project. They are not a "computery" thing.
Further clarification: by Data Dictionary, I mean a Logical data dictionary. Logical data dictionaries are totally, 100% implementation independent. Now, there are other data dictionaries that are implementation (e.g., database) oriented, but those are developer artifiacts - not business analysis artifacts. These other dictionaries are often called Physical data dictionaries.
The way things are supporsed to work is that the BA creates a business oriented logical data dictionary, and then the developer using such as an input to creating the physical data dictionary. But, often, projects just focus on an implementation oriented dictionary.
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