Evil Kraig F (8/8/2012)
Abu Dina (8/8/2012)
You're spot on once again. I had a meeting with the Director of Software development and she made a point about the data services team being afraid of change. This explains why the the Director of Data Services is so keen to know what it is that I'm doing! She's asked for two updates this week already!That's not horribly uncommon anyway, particularly for a new employee when there's no direct peers (it doesn't sound like you have any, anyways).
Yes, I'm working on my own on this project :pinch:
Absolutely! Ask to sit with one person through their day too, so you can see all of what they're doing end to end. What you want to do is understand the business workflow from the eyes of the current users. Find their pain points. Whatever you can do to remove those will give you more 'bank' for later when you start introducing things they're not comfortable with.
I spent two weeks with the data services team (in fact I asked for the second week) so I can get a good understanding of the process. Maybe my original post sounds confused but I do have developed a decent knowledge of some of the processes but I'm no genius to be honest. Maybe I'm' just slow but there is still a lot for me to learn. You're making me feel better already. It sounds like I have made some right decisions but I'm just panicking at what I consider lack of progress. I can tell you straightaway that one of the problem they have are slow running queries. Some merge scripts take hours to run. I've already posted this n a different thread and another SSC member identified some bad coding in there so there's already things that I can do to existing scripts to make them run faster etc..
b) Do as you suggest and start by creating a generic data cleanse script?
Perhaps. This will require more buy-in from the business users (Data Services) but could be a long-term goal to make sure new 'common' changes are included from now on (as you'll update the model scripts) but customs can stay custom without affecting any other clients. You'll definately want to find some way of having a common build script that everyone's working from so that fixes you make today don't get lost tomorrow when someone copies from a different folder.
You're going to spend a lot of time here just playing catchup with the business, and understanding what the intention behind all of the seeming traditions are. If you can stay true to the intention without making anyone feel silly for not 'thinking of that before', particularly in an entrenched business process, you'll be ready to start making strides into making that into a well oiled machine.
Just be careful. Too much, too fast, and you'll end up with 'pushback' because of people being afraid of losing their jobs if you automate too much. This is something you'll want to speak with directly to the director about, and I recommend it be a face to face. What you're looking for, in the immediate sense, is ways to make them more productive without taking away their job entirely. That starts with the 'pain points' from earlier.
Wise words.. wow, I have so much to learn. You know at first I wasn't sure if I should post my problem on this site but I'm so glad I did.
Thank you.
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