Transcript The Myths of Data Migration - Data Migration, Data Quality

The Myths
of Data Migration
Ian Murray
Aurora Business Consultancy Ltd
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.auroraconsult.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 7720 711754
MONSTERS
A data
Saturn
migration
eatingdevouring
his children,
a company,
by Goya,last
1819
week
Circe
Turns normally intelligent people into zombies
Circe’s Myths
• I reckon it’ll take just a couple of ….
• It’s a job for the techies
• We won’t need our IT people – the vendors should
handle it
• We can’t spare any time from our best people
Medusa
Petrifies your projects
Medusa’s Myths
• Don’t waste time on analysis
• Don’t worry about the business requirements
• We’ll worry about testing later
• Just get on with the mapping, you silly
data migration person!
Hydra
Makes you lose the will to live
Hydra’s Myths
• It won’t take that long to transfer our records
• We’ll worry about the data later
• We can sort out the data problems once we’ve
gone live
• We won’t need to do much testing
MYTH BUSTERS
Everybody
• Involve your key players before the beginning – buy-in is
vital. Explain why they are important (they are!), and why
data matters
• Keep involving them and keep them informed. Ignore the data
players and they’ll gnaw you
• Free up enough of their time – the contribution of your best
people, and your business people, is vital
• Regardless of the roles they play in the overall software project,
their roles in the data migration need to be ring-fenced and
handled separately
• Give them status – data is not a backwater
• Start at the start, from the start – on analysis, requirements,
scoping, team building, test planning
Diana, goddess of the hunt
Role: Users, Business Domain Experts
e.g. Operations staff
The Users & BDEs
• Get extra staff at the start of the project
• Make certain the Users are thoroughly trained in good time
• Keep the Users motivated
• Don’t rely on your Business Domain Experts’ views alone –
get the other stakeholders’ views on the data as well
Neptune, god of the sea
Data Owners
e.g. Departmental Managers
The Data Owners
• Try to identify at the start all the data sources that need
migrating
The Data Owners
• Try to identify at the start all the data sources that need
migrating
• Analyse the data sources that are not being migrated, both
upstream, and most importantly, downstream
• Clean the data that you must, for the target system, or for
Compliance – but leave the rest until later
• Avoid cleaning data during the transfer process itself – do it
beforehand if you can
Athena, goddess of wisdom
Technicians
e.g. Programmers
The Technicians
• Give them status and treat them right
• Don’t let your developers reinvent the wheel
• Don’t expect miracles, no matter how good early prototypes
look
• Don’t just accept the first estimate
• Get entity relationship diagrams for your technicians
The Technicians
• Give them status and treat them right
• Don’t let your developers reinvent the wheel
• Don’t expect miracles, no matter how good early prototypes
look
• Don’t just accept the first estimate
• Get entity relationship diagrams for your technicians
• Audit, log, preserve
• Demand configurability, and a checklist for configuring it
• Don’t use your least skilled, least experienced or least able staff
Champion
Hercules, hero of the gods
e.g. Operations Manager
The Champion
• He should work closely with your data migration Specialist
• More than anyone else, the Champion is the person you need
to free up as much as possible
• He should not be working on other projects
• He should not do other people’s jobs for them
Jupiter, leader of the gods
Sponsor
e.g. CEO
The Sponsor
• He needs to give status to the data migration project
• He needs to free up some of the time of some of his best people
• He needs to authorise overtime and the early hiring or crossposting of extra staff
• He needs to understand that data is not the same as software
• He needs to understand that skimping on the data project, or
leaving it until last, can lead to disaster
• If he’s forced to set a crazy deadline, he needs to make sure
everybody understands that he understands the consequences
Mercury, messenger of the gods
DM Specialist
e.g DM Consultant
The DM Specialist
• Understands that data migration is about business
• Understands that data migration is about people
• Keeps everybody informed and included, and
facilitates their involvement
• Co-ordinates all parties
• Understands both the business and the technical
issues, and can represent business and technical
people to each other
• Pre-empts problems – because he’s seen them before
MYTH BUSTERS
Data Users
Champion
Sponsor
Data
Owners
Technicians
DM Specialist
© Ian Murray, 2010
Photo acknowledgements:
Slides 3,4,5,6,13 (Diana),21 (Hercules) / Wikimedia Commons
Slides 8,21
Lernean Hydra Vase - Photograph © Wolfgang Sauber / Wikimedia Commons
Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported licence
Slide 13
Actaeon Vase - Photograph © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons
Slide 15
Poseidon/Neptune statue – Photograph © Hans Andersen / Wikimedia Commons
Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence
Slide 18
Athena Statue – Photograph © Marsyas / Wikimedia Commons
Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence
Slide 25
Mercury Vase – Photograph © David Liam Moran / Wikimedia Commons
Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence