Solutions for Development Efficiency

Daman’s clients are often sophisticated, second-generation users of data management technologies and solutions. Beyond the effective delivery of the solution, they expect their implementation partner to be able to contain development costs and accelerate project lead-times.

To address these development and testing challenges, Daman offers a range of methods and solutions designed to dramatically reduce project time and costs while fully supporting data quality and user satisfaction.

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Building upon our decades of success in the field as well as industry best practices, Daman provides several efficiency optimization strategies and solutions for development and maintenance cycles.

Supplemental solutions and automation

One of the lynch pins for development and maintenance efficiency is the use of automation tools. This is central to all Daman methodologies. We automate at every available window of opportunity in the data management lifecycle.

Examples include:

For requirements management
Interface specification ― the STM or set of instructions to perform certain transformations to the data while it is moved from source to target ― is critical to solution quality. Daman has systematized this process with specification tools that complement newly developed data integration technologies. Together, these tools and technologies help bridge the gap between business analysts on the one hand and technologists on the other who specify functionality or deliver code that enables this functionality.

For development
Daman has developed numerous supplemental solutions that when used with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) data management technologies can greatly streamline development and maintenance efforts (see sidebar).

In addition, by leveraging generic, parameterized code and reducing the use of custom one-off jobs and solutions, we can significantly streamline development. Where possible, code generators are embedded within the custom component to reduce development effort. A script library further reduces the coding burden through automated DML and SQL generation. Reduced effort directly translates into smaller development teams and lower cost.

For testing
Daman’s use of a Standard Architecture requires the testing of fewer components, greatly reducing the overall testing burden. Coupled with a Standard Test Environment that leverages Daman’s proprietary regression test environment, testing cycles are reduced by over 60% and, even more importantly, testing team size by over 80%.

Central to Daman’s solution is an automated testing framework that is run at the end of each day to ensure that solution quality is supported throughout development. In addition to efficiency benefits, its use has been shown to greatly enhance deliverable quality.

Process Optimization

The use of automation tools streamlines development processes to make them more cost-efficient in terms of resources and related expenses. In addition, Daman offers process optimization techniques that further facilitate efficiency objectives. Our focus is always on bringing methods to our clients’ environments that enhance their internal project and development methods by customization to demands of specific data management projects.

Key aspects include:

• Features supporting agile development, with appropriate definitions of release scope (both functionality and time) to allow for project momentum.
• Methods based on iterative and incremental development and solution refinement.
• Quick delivery of data to users, enabling their participation and input during ongoing development.
• The accommodation of changing requirements normally found in data-centric projects.
• Cross-functional team organization based on skills required and objects auctioned upon (tracks), versus those created by human resources for their purposes.