Choosing a Data Model for a Data Warehouse from a Non-experienced End-User Perspective

A critical decision that will determine if the implementation of a data warehouse is a success or a failure is selecting the data modelling approach. This research was done in the Design Science Research (DSR) Paradigm. As part of the first phase (awareness of the problem), questionnaires were completed by 112 respondents at companies in South Africa. The results of these showed that data models and the use thereof still present problems in many of these companies in South Africa. The aim of this paper is to assist an end user or company to choose a suitable data model. The Data Modelling Selection Framework (DMSF) is introduced in this paper. This framework considers: business information needs, data parameters, enterprise size, business processes, current data architecture and environment, as well as data strategy. The DMSF includes 15 guidelines that can be followed by an end-user or a company when having to decide which data model will be suitable for a data warehouse.