Data Base Mining is more of an art then a science, but it is the science that comes first before the art can be performed. Sound project management with a well defined governance framework is paramount. Clear scope and requirements are needed. A Mining Methodology (aka Knowledge Discovery) is critical to the success of the project. Our methodology emphasizes that the model/rule creation is 30% of the effort and that the other 70% of the effort focuses on data quality & loading with validation. This is necessary to successfully discover or predict meaningful results from your data. As the old adage goes: Garbage In/Garbage Out!  Due Diligence is necessary for Extracting, Transforming, and Loading (ETL) the data. Loading your data into an ODS, Data Warehouse, or Mart will aid in your ability to slice and dice your mining data before you start mining. Model usage must also leverage and segway into a Business Intelligence framework.