Database Design Interviewing
An interview? No, not for a new job, and not just for fun.
Interviewing for a database shouldn’t be a foreign concept if you’ve designed a database before. Interviewing in general shouldn’t be a foreign concept since you’ve been interviewed numerous times, although you may not have used that exact word for it. When was the last time you heard of someone walking onto a used car lot and having an exchange like this:
Salesman: Can I help you?
Customer: I need something with four wheels.
Salesman: Okay, that’ll be $24,999.99.
Customer: Okay here’s a check.
That doesn’t happen (if it did, there’d be many more car salesmen in the world). The fact is that the customer has certain expectations that need to be met and may not even know what they are. The salesman is there to ask the proper questions, do the paperwork, and smile as his client drives off the lot. Wouldn’t you expect questions like, “Do you want a sports car or a minivan?” or “Did you want that in Ocean Blue or Flaming Magma Red?”
The interview process is exactly the same when building a database for your organization or even yourself. Your client may say, “Give me something that holds information.” Sure, you could give them a database that keeps track of … well … anything, and you’ve met the expectations that they have communicated to you. But without interviewing your client beforehand, your job will be impossible, and nobody will get their expectations delivered because you don’t know what to design.
You’ve got to ask questions in order to understand what it is that’s going to be developed. Whether it’s just a casual email to some users to ask them about what they want from the database, a conference call with management, or a chat with the “resident expert” who knows everything about the business process but nothing about the technology of automating it. The more questions you ask the better the project will be because of it. Answers are what you need to take the project from concept to reality!
©2010 Blue Moose Technology, LLC
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