The Data Model Resource Book, Volume 3: Universal Patterns for Data Modeling

Silverston c10.tex V2 - 11/21/2008 3:20am Page 564

564 Chapter 10 ■ Socializing the Patterns

‘model’ and fine tune their own and other’s motivations. They include ques-

tions (and of course, boxes and lines) such as what are your motivations, what

perspectives do they have (e.g., professional, personal), and how does your

program/project help you with these motivations? We then model other peo-

ple’s motivations and show how to ‘model’ the relationships between people’s

motivations. This is very similar to data modeling! To understand data, we

model it, so why not do this with motivations? We talked about the Zachman

Framework in Chapter 1 and essentially, while the data model is column 1

and answers the ’What’ question in Zachman’s Framework, the ‘‘motivational

model’’ is a model for column 6 in the Zachman Framework

6

, answering the

‘Why’ question!

If you are game, try this: Write down your motivation for working on your

program/project on a piece of p aper. Then ask why you want this. Then write

down the answer and again ask why five times and see where you end up. If

you want to go further with this, try ‘modeling’ someone else’s motivations.

So what if you don’t know othe r people’s motivations? Three ways to find

out motivations are to ask, observe, and test.

For example, you may simply ask a data modeler on a project what his

or he r motivation i s, they may answer, ‘‘To sav e time.’’ Then you ...