As OSS Architects, we have an array of elegant frameworks to call upon when designing our transformational journeys – from current state to a target state architecture.
For example, when providing data mapping, we have tools to prepare current and/or target-state data diagrams such as the following:
Source here.
These diagrams are really elegant and powerful for communicating with other data experts and delivery teams. It’s a data expert language.
Data experts are experts of the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process, but often have less expertise with the actual meaning and importance of the data sets themselves. For example, a data expert may know there’s a product offerings table, and each has 23 associated attributes (eg bandwidth, SLA class, etc) available. But they may have less understanding of the 245 product types that are housed in the product’s data table, and even less awareness of the meanings of the thousands of product attributes. You need to be a subject matter expert (SME) to understand that detail about the data. In some cases, the SME might be from your client and knows far more tribal knowledge than you.
We often need other SMEs (the products expert in this case) to help us understand what has to happen with the data during transformation. What do we keep, what do we change, what do we discard, etc.
Just one problem – SMEs might not always speak the same language as the data experts.
As elegant as it is, the data relationships diagram above might not be the most intuitive format for product experts to review and comment.
As with many aspects of Architecture and transformation, if we’re to understand, it’s best to communicate in our audience’s language.
In this case, it might be best to show data mappings as overlays on screenshots that the Product owner is familiar with:
Such an approach might not look elegant to our data expert colleagues. The question is whether it quickly makes enough sense to the SMEs for you to elicit concise responses from them.
The “right” approach is not always the most effective.
I’d love to hear your tips, tricks and recommendations for speaking / listening in the audience’s language.
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