Jaco van der Laan

What DW & BI Summit Teaches Us About Model-Driven Data Engineering

19/09/2025  ·  Data Architecture  ·  Data Engineering  ·  Data Modeling

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Lessons from a leading data modelling and BI event on how collaborative modelling, governance, and architecture can anchor reliability in modern data platforms.

Introduction

Each year, the DW & BI Summit, organized by Adept Events and supported by BI-Platform.nl, brings together thought leaders in data architecture, data modelling, governance, and business intelligence.

With speakers like Rick van der Lans, Alec Sharp, Lawrence Corr, Nicola Askham, and many others, the Summit has established itself as an important stage for learning how business and IT can shape modern data ecosystems.

For practitioners like me, focused on Model-Driven Data Engineering (MDDE) — dual/bi-temporal SCD2, business-friendly mapping, metadata-driven design, and contract-first pipelines — the Summit provides not just inspiration but concrete techniques we can apply to strengthen our methodology.

Why DW & BI Summit Matters

The Summit is unique because it’s not a vendor showcase. Instead, it focuses on methodology, principles, and real-world cases:

  • Speakers: international experts in data modelling, data architecture, governance, and BI/analytics.
  • Subjects: from business-oriented data modelling to agile design, from cloud architectures to data contracts and governance.
  • Audience: data architects, modelers, engineers, BI professionals, data product owners, and business analysts.
  • Values: bridging business semantics and technical implementation, balancing agility with governance, and ensuring data is reliable, trusted, and reusable.

This orientation makes it highly relevant to our MDDE work, which seeks to build reliable, scalable, and business-aligned platforms.

Case Learnings with Direct Relevance

1. Business-Oriented Modelling (Alec Sharp)

In his 2024 Business-Oriented Data Modelling Masterclass, Alec Sharp stressed that “a data model is a description of a business, not of a database.” Topics ranged from recursion and subtyping to modelling history and time, always anchored in non-technical communication with SMEs.

💡 For us: this validates our approach of aligning the 3NF business logical data model (LDM) with historization in dual SCD2. The historization rules (valid_from, valid_to) are not just technical tricks — they are business semantics that must be co-owned.

2. Entity-Relationship Modelling in Business Language

Sharp also ran a workshop on Entity-Relationship Modelling from a non-technical perspective. With checklists, examples, and collaborative modelling techniques, he showed how to involve business stakeholders from conceptual to detailed modelling.

💡 For us: we can strengthen our business-friendly mapping framework by starting workshops in Miro/draw.io, capturing transformations in plain business terms, and then generating the SQL and metadata automatically.

3. Agile Modelling with BEAM (Lawrence Corr)

Lawrence Corr’s workshop on Agile Data Warehouse Design & Dimensional Modeling introduced modelstorming: highly interactive sessions with SMEs, using the 7Ws (who, what, when, where, how many, why).

💡 For us: these agile cycles mirror how we want to design exposure views. Instead of producing static star schemas, we co-create views and contracts with business users, iterate quickly, and embed PIT tables and history logic only where it adds value.

4. Modern Trends (Summit 2025)

2025 Summit topics like Ensemble Logical Data Models, Federated Governance, and Testing Data & BI show that the community is moving toward:

  • contracts and quality gates,
  • governed logical data models,
  • data mesh-like federated structures.

💡 For us: this is confirmation that our dual SCD2 + contract-driven MDDE approach is on the right track. By embedding schema evolution, versioning, and governance directly in metadata, we’re aligned with broader industry directions.

The Role of Adept Events & BI-Platform.nl

Behind the Summit are Adept Events and BI-Platform.nlL

  • Adept Events specializes in high-quality conferences and workshops on BI, data architecture, data science, and governance. Their focus on deep learning, not vendor marketing, makes them trusted.
  • BI-Platform.nl is a Dutch knowledge hub for BI and data architecture, publishing expert articles, interviews, and reports. It complements the Summit by providing ongoing insights and case studies year-round.

Together, they create a space where ideas like metadata-driven engineering, historization patterns, and contract-first design can be debated and refined.

Relevance for Model-Driven Data Engineering

When I look at our methodology — dual SCD2, exposure views, metadata-driven diagrams, business-friendly mapping — the Summit’s teachings reinforce three principles:

  1. Business semantics first: our logical models must describe the business clearly before they describe data structures.
  2. Agility in modelling: we must embed interactive workshops, sprint-based modelling, and iterative contracts.
  3. Governance as a core layer: contracts, lineage, and observability must be baked into our metadata and pipelines, not bolted on later.

Conclusion

The DW & BI Summit is more than an annual conference. It’s a mirror for our own work in Model-Driven Data Engineering: showing us where the community is heading, which pitfalls to avoid, and which techniques resonate across projects.

By integrating lessons from Alec Sharp, Lawrence Corr, Rick van der Lans, and others, we can sharpen our MDDE methodology — making it not only technically strong but also deeply business-aligned and sustainable.

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