T-SQL Tuesday #13 - What the Business Says Is Not What the Business Wants

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Steve Jones is the editor of SQLServerCentral.com and visits a wide variety of data related topics in his daily editorial. Steve has spent years working as a DBA and general purpose Windows administrator, primarily working with SQL Server since it was ported from Sybase in 1990. You can follow Steve on Twitter at twitter.com/way0utwest

T-SQL Tuesday #13 - What the Business Says Is Not What the Business Wants

Posted on 7 December 2010
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It’s time to wrap up T-SQL Tuesday for the year 2010 and I was invited to host his month’s blog party by Adam Machanic (Blog | Twitter).

What’s T-SQL Tuesday?

This monthly event is the brainchild of Adam, and you can read about the inspiration in his very first T-SQL Tuesday post. Adam Machanic , a long time SQL Server MVP came up with an excellent idea of improving community involvement around blogging where bloggers around the world post their views on a same topic chosen by the host on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. If you are interested in hosting an event like this and then send a note to Adam.

What are the rules?

1. Since this is a global event, your post should go live between 2010/12/14 00:00:00.000 GMT (2nd Tuesday) and 2010/12/15 00:00:00.000 GMT. Since those of us in the US as sometimes date challenged, that’s sometime during Dec 14, 2010 using GMT time.
2. Your blog post has to link back to the hosting blog, and the link must be anchored from the logo (found above) which must also appear at the top of the post.
3. If trackbacks won’t work properly then please leave a comment below so that your post is accounted for in the roundup.

Nice Things To Do

1. Include a reference to T-SQL Tuesday in the title of your post. (The more we bloggers advertise T-SQL Tuesday, the more we bloggers get T-SQL Tuesday readers)
2. Tweet using the hash tag #TSQL2sDay to follow links and other relevant conversations.
3. consider hosting T-SQL Tuesday yourself. If you’re interested let Adam Machanic Know. If you’ve participated in two T-SQL Tuesdays previously and you don’t let your blog go stale (blog once a month for the last six months) then he’ll put you in the rotation.

The Topic

I was giving a presentation recently and someone in the audience started to ask about why I recommended against a certain technique. Without getting into it, this person kept saying that she had to implement things her way since the “business” said they needed it done that way. However a little digging showed that the business didn’t really understand the technology. They were asking for a result, and she took them literally in how she implemented a process. A classic impedance mismatch.

I think we’ve all had situations that are similar. The business, the client, the customer, is asking for something, but they don’t know how to ask those of us building the technology. Or they don’t understand the implications of asking for something like “absolutely zero data loss” to be implemented.

The official topic this month is:

What issues have you had in interacting with the business to get your job done.

Post your answer on Dec 14, 2010, based on GMT time, make sure a trackback or link appears in the comments for this blog, and I’ll look forward to reading what issues you have had to work through.

Comments

Posted by Jason Brimhall on 8 December 2010

This is a touchy subject and could open up a can of worms. Maybe we should limit entries to 5000 words on this one. ;)

Oh, and I will get busy with my post now.

Posted by Gethyn Ellis on 8 December 2010

I agree Jason, I guess this month's post will also be a test of writing a post that doesn't upset anyone while still making your point...I have a whole bunch of example to choose from but need to get the balance right...Or there we'll end up with a bunch of rant type posts.

Posted by chris.shaw on 9 December 2010

One would think I would read the directions... "Post your answer on Dec 14, 2010, based on GMT time"

Posted by Steve Jones on 9 December 2010

Yep, next week. I don't always see the announcements, and write/post at the last minute. I tried to give everyone time to hear about this. Pass the word.

Posted by Matt Whitfield on 13 December 2010

Ok then! My post for this is up @ www.atlantis-interactive.co.uk/.../T-SQL-Tuesday-13-What-The-Business-Wants-Is-Not-What-The-Business-Wants.aspx

I'm off to bed now! :)

Posted by Rob Farley on 13 December 2010

Here's mine:

sqlblog.com/.../collation-errors-in-business.aspx

Posted by Mark Broadbent on 13 December 2010

Can't believe you beat me Matt, I've been sat here with my finger at the ready to press that publish button.

Hi Steve, here's my contribution to T-SQL Tuesday tenbulls.co.uk/.../t-sql-tuesday-13-what-the-business-says-is-not-what-the-business-wants

Bye for now. Back to the books for me....

Posted by Roger Noble on 13 December 2010

Here is my post - www.rogernoble.com/.../take-off-the-white-coat

Posted by aaron.bertrand on 13 December 2010

Here's mine:

sqlblog.com/.../t-sql-tuesday-13-business-expectations.aspx

Posted by Jason Brimhall on 13 December 2010

Here's mine

jasonbrimhall.info/.../t-sql-tuesday-13-business-requirements

Posted by Pinal Dave on 13 December 2010

Today's subject is the one of the most interesting subject. It made me go back to interesting past experience.

blog.sqlauthority.com/.../sql-server-what-the-business-says-is-not-what-the-business-wants

Posted by Alexander Kuznetsov on 13 December 2010

Here you go, Steve:

sqlblog.com/.../t-sql-tuesday-13-clarifying-requirements.aspx

Thank you for hosting this event!

Posted by Noel McKinney on 13 December 2010

Thanks Steve, great topic, I finally had to stop writing and break out material into future blog posts! Here's my T-SQL Tuesday post...

noelmckinney.com/.../t-sql-tuesday-013-business

Posted by Nicholas Cain on 13 December 2010

There was just so much that could be written about this. Narrowing it down was probably the toughest part. Here's what I came up with <a href="www.englishtosql.com/.../a>

Posted by Nicholas Cain on 13 December 2010

There was just so much that could be written about this. Narrowing it down was probably the toughest part. Here's what I came up with

www.englishtosql.com/.../t-sql-tuesday-13a-mysterious-business.html

Posted by chris.shaw on 13 December 2010

Ok now that I am posting at the right time.... Here it is:

http://bit.ly/icSW4K

Thanks for hosting a great question Steve.

Posted by Jen McCown on 13 December 2010

Yeah, I went with the pure ranty rant style. I still managed to keep it short, though!

T-SQL Tuesday #13–A Business Walks Into a Bar.... http://bit.ly/ihYPbI

Posted by John Sansom on 14 December 2010

A decided to take a more positive angle, hope no one minds :-)

http://tinyurl.com/26pvxsv

Posted by Rob Farley on 14 December 2010

I was thinking of writing another post (one that didn't have a fart joke in it) but I didn't really like it, and will just submit the one entry (that I commented about earlier).