george sibbald (1/12/2009)
SQLBOT (1/12/2009)
Andy Steinke (1/12/2009)
Your organization needs to suppoort saying no; it's easy to say this from an ivory tower perspective but you have to have management and executive support.This is very true and in the case where management support does not exist, a case needs to be made to get the attitudes, procedures and culture shifted. By not supporting production stability and strongly defined processes the organization is stunting its capabilities (and may not know it).
Thanks for your comments!
~BOT
couldn't agree more, but be prepared to be unpopular with the wrong people! So this is not a task that should be left to a junior DBA.
Something that I find very useful as a "no" tool is the Email chain. Noone should say no without justification, that goes without saying but actually considering the request, making the decision to say no and then justifying that decision is the hardest part. In my experience that request then goes up the chain to someone that knows nothing of your decision and why you made it! I would recommend saying no together with the reasoning in an Email and cc'ing your own supervisor. If that supervisor is worth his salt he will back you up as long as your reaasoning was sound.