Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
to the complexity of the business requirements. A relatively new ap-
proach combines the best elements of both the waterfall and RAD ap-
proaches and has proven valuable on larger development projects.
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Support:
A development methodology (or a database development
methodology) is a product, whether an organization has paid for it or
not. As such, it is important for the methodology to be supported by
the vendor into the future. An unsupported methodology becomes ob-
solete in sort order. Some questions to ask the vendor include: “How
much research is being conducted to improve the methodology?” “Is
there a hotline for technical support?” and “When is the next release
of the methodology being released?”
•
Price:
The price of the methodology should be considered in whole
and in part and assessed against the value that is received. Consider
the one-time cost, training costs, upgrade costs, yearly licence fees,
costs per user, customization costs, hardware/software support costs,
and costs for future releases.
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Vendor:
Consider the stability and market share of the vendor provid-
ing the methodology. The vendor's references also should be checked
to ascertain their support for clients. Vendors that are more stable and
have more market share are more likely to improve their methodology
with new techniques in the future.
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Proven Success:
One of the surest ways of selecting a suitable method-
ology is to check the references of similar organizations that have
used it successfully on development projects.
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Electronic Availability:
The methodology should be available electron-
ically through Lotus Notes, the Internet, or CD-ROM. It also should be
available on paper. This makes the methodology widely available to
those using it across the organization.
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Templates/Deliverables:
Reusable templates and deliverables are a
good source of best practices that provide the means for quick start-
ing development projects. Many methodologies are demonstrated
with these, but the templates/deliverables are not provided to cus-
tomers. In such cases, it is valuable to try to negotiate the inclusion of
templates/deliverables as part of the transaction. If the templates/de-
liverables still are not offered by the vendor, but the rest of the meth-
odology is acceptable, a pilot project should be used to create
reusable templates and deliverables for future projects to use. Al-
though this may slow the pilot project down in the short term, subse-
quent projects will run more efficiently. It is also desirable to select a
methodology architecture that allows additional templates and deliv-
erables to be added to the database on an ongoing basis.
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Linkages to newer architectures:
The methodology also should support
linkages with modules that support data warehousing, object technol-
ogy, E-commerce, and Web architectures. Flexibility in expanding the
methodology directly or through deliverable linkages is desirable.
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