FREE DM Review Site Registration!
Sign-up today and access DM Review on the Web!

Your FREE registration entitles you to:
FREE email newsletters

FREE access to all DM Review content

FREE access to web seminars, resource portals, our white paper library and more!

   

Publisher reserves the right to serve qualified requesters only.

How could I train to be a good data warehouse business analyst?

Q:  

Question: How could I train to be a good data warehouse business analyst?

A:  

Larisa Moss' Answer: An excellent source of comprehensive training are TDWI seminars from The Data Warehousing Institute (www.dw-institute.com and www.tdwi.org), most of which are also available as onsite seminars all over the world. If you are unable to attend the seminars, go to a data warehouse or business intelligence conference in your region. If that is also not available to you, read the articles posted on DM Review's Web site www.dmreview.com. I also recommend the following books: e-Data by Jill Dyché, The Data Warehouse Challenge and Data Resource Quality by Michael Brackett and Corporate Information Factory by Bill Inmon, Claudia Imhoff and Ryan Sousa.

Clay Rehm's Answer: The most important trait to being a good analyst is having extraordinary people skills that include fantastic verbal and written communication skills. Can you show empathy? What is your body language saying? Can you always be upbeat and positive, and never speak badly of anyone? Can you stay neutral on issues and not take sides? Can you build trust so your client is comfortable in telling you what you need to know?

How fast can you learn your client's business? How much of it can you retain without having to refer to paper documentation? When posed with a challenge, can you find a better and more efficient process than the current process?

If you can do these things, you will definitely become a good analyst.


Larissa Moss is founder and president of Method Focus Inc., a company specializing in improving the quality of business information systems. She has more than 20 years of IT experience with information asset management. Moss is coauthor of three books: Data Warehouse Project Management (Addison-Wesley, 2000), Impossible Data Warehouse Situations (Addison-Wesley, 2002) and Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision- Support Applications (Addison-Wesley, 2003). Moss can be reached at methodfocus@earthlink.net.

Clay Rehm, CCP, PMP, is president of Rehm Technology (www.rehmtech.com), a consulting firm specializing in data integration solutions. Rehm provides hands-on expertise in project management, assessments, methodologies, data modeling, database design, metadata and systems analysis, design and development. He has worked in multiple platforms and his experience spans operational and data warehouse environments. Rehm is a technical book editor and is a co-author of the book, Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts. In addition, he is a Certified Computing Professional (CCP), a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Software Engineering from Carroll College. He can be reached at clay.rehm@rehmtech.com.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:



Industry Vendors