1. Defining a Mission Statement and Mission Objectives

Mission Statement

Let's study on the Case Study first: Mike’s Bikes

Mike’s Bikes, our case-study business, is a new bike shop located in a small suburb called Greenlake, not far from downtown Seattle. It has been open for only two months, and business is growing steadily. Mike, the shop’s owner, has been conducting his daily business on paper. He records sales on preprinted forms, maintains employee and vendor information on sheets of paper (storing them in folders), and writes information about his regular customers on index cards. As a result, Mike spends a lot of time maintaining all of this data. He owns a computer but uses it mainly to play games, watch videos on YouTube, write email, keep in touch with friends on Facebook, and visit various golf sites. The only business-related task he performs on the computer is keeping track of the bike shop’s inventory using a spreadsheet program.

Although he thinks a database is a good idea, he’s aware of the fact that he doesn’t know the first thing about properly designing one. Undaunted, Mike has decided to hire a database consultant to design the database for him.

You are, in this fable, the consultant he has hired for the project. you’ll apply each technique to design the database for Mike’s Bikes. As you learn new concepts or techniques, Mike will supply you with the information you need to complete the design of his database.


Defining the Mission Statement

It provides you with a focus for your design efforts and keeps you from getting diverted and making the database structure unnecessarily large or complex.
The Well-Written Mission Statement

Lets' take an example
► The purpose of the New Starz Talent Agency database is to maintain the data we generate, and to supply information that supports the engagement services we provide to our clients and the management services we provide to our entertainers.

► Think of a mission statement as the flame of a candle located at the end of a dark tunnel. The light produced by the flame guides you to the end of the tunnel, so long as you focus on it. In the same manner, the mission statement guides you to the end of the database design process.


Here’s an example of a poorly worded mission statement:
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The purpose of the Whatcom County Hearing Examiner’s database is to keep track of applications for land use, maintain data on applicants, keep a record of all hearings, keep a record of all decisions, keep a record of all appeals, maintain data on department employees, and maintain data for general office use.

It should be immediately apparent that there are a few things wrong with this mission statement.
• It’s slightly verbose. Remember that the ideal mission statement should be succinct and to the point.
• The specific purpose of the database is unclear. This mission statement is written in such a way that it is difficult for you to ascertain the specific purpose of the database.
• It describes several specific tasks. Two issues arise when a mission statement is written in this manner. First, the description of the tasks does nothing to define the specific purpose of the database. Second, the statement somehow appears to be incomplete. It raises the question, “Are there any tasks we’ve forgotten to include in the mission statement?”

You can fix this mission statement by removing the references to specific tasks (be sure to save them for the next step) and rewriting the statement. Here is an example of one of the possible ways you could rewrite this mission statement:

The purpose of the Whatcom County Hearing Examiner’s database is to maintain the data the examiner’s office uses to make decisions on land-use requests submitted by citizens of Whatcom County.
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Case Study: Defining a Mission Statement for Mike’s Bikes

Now you need to define a mission statement for Mike’s Bikes. Before you can define the mission statement, you must conduct an interview with the owner to gather information about his business. Assume you have an assistant named Zachary who is conducting the interview for you. The interview may go something like this:
ZACHARY:     “Can you tell me why you believe you need a database?”
MIKE:            “I think we need a database just to keep track of all our inventory. I’d also like to keep track of all our sales as well.”
ZACHARY:     “I’m sure the database will address those issues. Now, what would you say is the single most important function of your business?”
MIKE:            “To provide a wide array of bicycle products and bicycle-related services to our customers. We have a lot of great customers. And regular ones too! They’re our biggest asset.”
(The interview continues until Zachary has finished asking all the questions on his list.)

After the interview, review the information you’ve gathered and define the mission statement. You can ascertain a few points from the previous dialogue with Mike, such as the fact that he’ll need to be able to track products, customers, and customer sales. But the most valuable point is provided by his reply to the second question. You can use the first sentence in that reply to formulate the mission statement. Taking into account some of the other points you’ve identified in the interview, you can rewrite Mike’s reply to create the following mission statement:

The purpose of the Mike’s Bikes database is to maintain the data we need to support our retail sales business and our customer service operations.

Mission Objectives

Mission objectives help you define table structures, field specifications, relationship characteristics, and views. They also help you establish data integrity and define business rules. Finally, mission objectives guide your development efforts and ensure that your final database structure supports the mission statement.

Here are some examples of typical mission objectives:

► Maintain complete patient address information.
► Keep track of all customer sales.
► Make sure an account representative is responsible for no more than 20 accounts at any given time.
► Keep track of vehicle maintenance.
► Produce employee phone directories.

Here is an example of a poorly written mission objective:

We need to keep track of the entertainers we represent and the type of entertainment they provide, as well as the engagements that we book for them.
There are two problems with this mission objective.

1. It defines more than a single general task. It is clear that there are two tasks represented in this statement—keeping track of entertainers and keeping track of engagements.
2. It contains unnecessary detail. It’s unnecessary to refer to the entertainer’s “type of entertainment” in this mission objective. The phrase type of entertainment either refers to a distinct characteristic of an entertainer, or represents a new task that should be declared as a mission objective. If it refers to a distinct characteristic of an entertainer, it should be removed from the statement; otherwise, it should be used as the basis for a new mission objective.

You can fix this mission objective by removing the unnecessary detail and rewriting it as two mission objectives. (Keep the details you discard on a separate list; they may be useful later in the design process.) Here is an example of one possible revision:

► Maintain complete entertainer information.
► Keep track of all the engagements we book.

What types of reports do you generate?
What types of things do you keep track of?
What types of services does your organization provide?
How would you describe the type of work you do?
following above question
“Is there any type of customer information incorporated within the procedure you just described?”

Here is a set of mission objectives that you could derive from the participant’s original response:
Maintain information on customer vehicles.
Keep track of work orders.
Maintain information on our service teams.
Maintain information on our mechanics.
Maintain information on our customers.


Case Study: Defining Mission Objectives for Mike’s Bikes

ZACHARY:     “Can you give me an idea of the things you’d like to track in the database?”
MIKE:            “Oh sure, that’s pretty easy. I want to keep track of our inventory, our customers, and our sales.”
ZACHARY:     “Is there anything else that you can think of that is related to these subjects?”
MIKE            “Well, I guess if we’re going to keep track of our inventory, we should know who our suppliers are.”
ZACHARY:     “What about the sales reps involved in each sale?”
MIKE:            “Oh yeah, we should definitely keep information about our employees. If nothing else, it’s a good idea to do this from a human resources point of view. At least, that’s what my wife tells me!”


Here are a few possible mission objectives for the Mike’s Bikes database.
Maintain complete inventory information.
Maintain complete customer information.
Track all customer sales.
Maintain complete supplier information.
Maintain complete employee information.