JCK - A Veteran-Owned Small Business		 EXCELLENCE IN DATA ARCHITECTURE

since 1989

America Support You		 4348 Pine Grove Ave
Fort Gratiot MI USA
48059-3732
V: 810 982-8639
  Training Consulting Experience & Colleagues Articles & White Papers About Us
Business Event Analysis & Modeling (BEAM™)

BEAM™ for Decision Support Systems

Extended Relational Analysis (ERA™)

Structured Query Language (SQL)

Course Offerings

Schedule & Registration



What is User Focused Data Architecture?

Pros and Cons

The advantages of UFDA are numerous:
  • It is simple for both users and technicians to learn and use
  • It facilitates clear communication about the data definitions and requirements – eliminating the “ugly surprises”
  • It helps the users and analylsts both get a much clearer picture of the operational environment
  • It is both inexpensive and highly effective
  • It works well with all database software and schema management tools
It has some drawbacks, though:
  • It bucks the industry trend (that’s right – the same trend that provides that 65% failure rate)
  • It threatens the analytical “priesthood” by simplifying, rather than obfuscating, the analysis step
  • It requires front-end user time
  • It doesn’t pretend to do everything all at once (nothing does). Issues like data types, naming standards, and other implementation issues are left for the implementation step.
That’s our solution to the high system development failure rate: focus the data architecture on the user’s understanding and expertise. Let that be your guide to building a data structure and getting clear operational definitions. Once you’ve done that, you’d be amazed at how quickly your applications come together, and how satisfied your users are with the result.

We know this because we also develop applications using these techniques. Our customers don’t have big budgets with lots of room to overrun, and their operations can’t take failed applications delivery. We don’t just talk about these advantages, we use them.

Of course, if your current development techniques deliver your projects on time and within budget to your user’s satisfaction, then you don’t need UFDA. But if not, and you’ve got a development effort pending, why not give UFDA a try? Send your analysts and users to a BEAM or ERA class, or bring in one of our consultants to demonstrate how UFDA works. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
 

Back


Since 1989, JCK has been devoted to teaching and implementing the principles of User-Focused Data Architecture. UFDA is based on the principle that the users are the data experts in any organization. Sound data architecture should focus on extracting the user's knowledge, clarifying ambiguous defintions, and building understandable data structures. These definitions and structures serve as the basis for system development. The first and most well known UFDA technique is Extended Relational Analysis ™ (ERA), which has been proven for decades. More recent techniques include Business Event Analysis & Modeling ™ (BEAM), which is useful for both Transactional Systems (BEAM TSS) and Decision Support Systems (BEAM DSS).