DATABASE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE - Database Design and Development: An Essential Guide for IT Professionals - page 120

• Locations of the users
• Preliminary purpose of the business unit in the organization
• Contribution of the business unit to the overall core business
• Secondary purpose of the business unit
• Relationship of the business unit to other business units
Here are some tips on the types of questions for the interviews:
Major business processes. What are the business processes for which your unit is
completely responsible (example: completely responsible for the process of prepar-
ing invoices to customers)? What are the business processes that your unit is not
completely responsible for but participates in with other business units? Briefly
describe each process your unit is involved in.
Current information sources. Do your processes generate all the information
needed by your unit? If not, what are the sources of information you need for your
business processes? Which reports do you use for running your business?
Timeliness of information. Do your processes require real-time data? What are
they? Which are the on-line data types? Which types of data used are a day old, a
week old, or a month old? Does your unit need historical data? If so, for what
purposes?
Major computer applications. What are the computer applications used in your
unit? Which are the important reports? Which are the input screens? What are the
types of data input by your unit? Which display screens are important to your unit?
Data volumes. How much of the data your unit generates is stored in the computer
files? Give volume estimates. How much of the data your unit uses, but does not
generate, is stored? Give volume estimates.
Document each interview with a write-up adopting the following general outline:
1. Profile of the person or persons interviewed
2. Background and objectives
3. How the unit is managed and controlled
4. Business processes
5. Business objects
6. Data requirements related to each business object
7. Current computer screens used
8. Current computer reports used
9. How success of the business unit is measured
JAD Methodology If you are able to collect a lot of baseline information up front
from documents, group sessions may be a good substitute for individual interviews.
In this method, you are able to get a number of interested users meet together
in groups. On the whole, this method could result in fewer group sessions than