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

Silverston c10.tex V2 - 11/21/2008 3:20am Page 569

Developing Trust so People Can Rely on the Patterns 569

It is important to reiterate how difficult it is to create a purpose and/or

vision without understanding the motivations of the organization (or people)

that will use the patterns. If the purpose and/or vision does not represent

the motivations of the organization (and the majority of people within the

organization), it is probably not an effective purpose and/or vision.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Have a clear, common, and compelling

purpose and vision, in writing, for reusable patterns; one that supports the

motivations of your enterprise.

Developing Trust so People Can Rely

on the Patterns

Although it is extremely worthwhile to understand motivations and establish

a clear, common, and compelling purpose and vision, the success of socializing

the patterns depends greatly on how much trust there is. For example, many

times people have the following questions and make the following statements

when they are presented with the patterns:

Why should we use these patterns?

We can develop better patterns ourselves!

How do you know if these really work? Are they proven? Can we trust

them?

We are under the gun on this project, so please let us just do our own

thing so we can be successful! We don’t know if we can trust your pat-

terns not to blow our deadlines!

Why is trust important to socializing the patterns? ...