ETL and Data Analysis

  • I'm looking for some white papers or articles that demonstrate the necessity and/or roles that Analysis plays with regards to the ETL process as a whole.

    I'm a Supervisor over a couple ETL developers and there is an internal power struggle going on, typcial office politics. We have a seperate Data Analysis team who is responsible for getting a first look at the data, defining how it should be mapped, the types of Transformations they are looking for, etc.

    Anyone that can point me in the right direction will find a present under their festivus pole.

    Thanks in Advance

    Crusty.

  • Heh... <heavy sigh>... when will people learn? The two teams need to learn to embrace the talents of each team and exploit those talents for the good of the company. You don't need white papers on Data Analysis and ETL. You need white papers on what it takes to make good employees and how to inspire team work. 😉

    The Analysts need to learn that they might not know as much as the Developers when it comes to things like normalization and performance and the Developers need to learn that they might not know as much as the Analysts about the business requirements. Then, put them all in a very small and nearly airless and windowless conference room and tell them they can't come out until they resolve their differences to do a good job for the company. Water, food, and sanitary facilities are optional. 😛

    High velocity pork chops will likely be needed to get their attention. :w00t:

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff,

    As usual, thanks for the info. HOWEVER, this time I'm only giving you 3 out of 5 stars since you weren't able to read my mind this time. 😀

    The problem isn't between the DA's and the ETL peeps (other than one person that keeps making changes in production who will soon be shot). The problem is between an IT Director and another Director. The IT Director wants to steal the ETL group from my boss, whereas my boss (Operations Director) is going under the notion that I feel ETL and DA are the same team... say... right and left legs... 😎

    I'm trying to find "official", or spiffier, write ups that I can use to support that idea. Honestly, ETL and DA are IT functions in my opinion; but that's not how they have it organized here, which is weird. The new IT Director is making a power grab that doesn't need to be made and will split up DA and ETL even further, whereas I am trying to consolidate both teams (with me in charge 🙂 ). So far, everyone KNOWS they should be together, but I can't find anything like MSDN, or something cooler than me 😎 to say that.

    Clear as mud? Oh.. and flying pork chops WOULD get their attention.:w00t:

  • Unfortunately I don't think you would find any whitepapers or conclusive sources that prove it would be best keeping them together.

    Over the years I have seen it done in all the different ways, and I think it really depends on how the organization operates, the culture and also the ability of different teams to work together. I don't want to ruin your dreams of an ideal situation, but I've seen cases where it has made sense for an Analytics team to move closer to the business...dependent on a few factors of course.

    In my opinion, it would be best if you take your own internal processes and map that against the functions these 2 teams perform...and see where it would create conflicts (and bad delivery to the business) if the teams were reporting to different managers.

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