Example: “Bottom Up” Development
In an effort to realize the tremendous upside potential of data warehousing, but avoid the
very difficult challenges inherent with the “top down” model, data warehousing teams have developed the “bottom up” approach to reach the goal of the EDW system. In the “bottom up” approach, an Enterprise Data Mart Architecture (EDMA) is developed to provide a context for development efforts. While it takes in the entire system scope at a high level, it is not as detailed as an EDW system architecture, so avoids the “analysis paralysis” so common to those efforts. Once the EDMA is complete, an initial area of business pain is selected for the first incremental Architected Data Mart (ADM). The EDMA is expanded in this area to include the full range of detail required for the design
and development of the incremental ADM. Subsequent phases fill in the EDMA, until the
team and the organization is ready to construct the EDW