Data Modeling Challenges Two Day Workshop

A Hands-On Approach to Sharpening Your Modeling Skills!

Ever ski? Each trail is graded a green circle for easy, a blue square for moderate, or a black diamond for difficult. The modeling challenges you face in the office can be put into similar categories.

This workshop includes a carefully selected collection of easy, moderate, and difficult scenarios. After mastering easy challenges, you'll advance to more moderate and difficult challenges. This is not just a lecture. You'll get hands-on experience. The more times you fall and pick yourselves up again, the more trees you hit, the more you challenge yourself, the more you'll grow your experiences and knowledge base.

Just like skiing, expect a fun yet intense session. By the completion of the workshop, you might be sore and sweaty, but you'll obtain a higher level of experience and have a few more techniques to apply when you get back to the office.  

You will learn to

  • Identify business requirements within a tight timeframe
  • Build a model that meets the business needs using generic structures
  • Catch structural design issues before it’s too late  

Outline

Module 1 contains the easy Green Trails. Green Trails will strengthen our skills in areas such as logical data modeling and definitions.        

  • Add an unusual data element to an existing data model         
  • Identify which rules to show on a logical data model         
  • Determine whether a dimensional data model can ever be a logical data model

Module 2 contains the moderate Blue Trails. Blue Trails will strengthen our skills in areas such as abstraction and surrogate keys.         

  • Experience the dark side of abstraction         
  • Agree on the guidelines as to when to use a surrogate key         
  • Uncover subtle structural issues on a logical data model

Module 3 contains the difficult Diamond Trails. Diamond Trails will strengthen our skills in areas such as advanced normalization and dimensional modeling.         

  • Build a subject area data model in under 15 minutes         
  • Apply advanced normalization         
  • Build a star schema in under 15 minutes

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Audience

Anyone with a minimum amount of basic modeling experience who in their roles needs to understand or build data models, including:

  • Analysts
  • Modelers
  • Developers