Thus the post. I imagine because the managers understand things from a software perspective; source -> build -> application, and need some cajoling to understand database -> manual process that works most of the time with lots of upkeep -> output.

I'm sure others have been in this situation and I want to know how they put these things into terms "software managers" can understand. And part of that must be picking out how databases are different to software.

I'm sorry this is a very roundabout way of asking a general question; the exact kind that I hate, but of course I'm trying to keep details minimal too.