The Integration Engineer
When it just has to work.

This is like the Covey proverb, “Begin with the end in mind.”  In an integration project, the first step is always to define the target of where your data is going to end up.  This is true for a document conversion like XSLT or a EDI or Flat File transformation to XML or another version.  It is also true for ETL tasks where we are getting data in and out of a Database or repository.

Starting the work of transforming data or files without a well defined target for the data will cause you to do extra and unnecessary work, and to repeat some steps when the true destination is known.  It may seem obvious, but many many people fall into this trap, and then don’t understand why their projects keep exceeding their time budgets.

Keeping a copy of all of the documentation you create is a pretty general benifit.  It helps you in three major ways;

1. Having a personal copy means that if the systems that have the public copies become unavilable, you will still have access to them.
2. Some times projects that get shelved, lose their documentation.  If you have a personal copy, when the project comes back to life, you will not be starting over.
3. And you never know what future project you will be working on that will spark the memory, “Hey we solved a problem like this on this other project…”  And having the documentation for it will help you.

I have never regretted keeping a personal copy of documentation.  But I have always regretted knowing that I didn’t keep one when I could have used it.