# Seeking Advice on Streamlining Data Models in dbt

**URL:** <https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/seeking-advice-on-streamlining-data-models-in-dbt/14554>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [July 29, 2024, 5:06am UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/seeking-advice-on-streamlining-data-models-in-dbt/14554 "2024-07-29T05:06:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![elinasadiq](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discourse.getdbt.com/elinasadiq/32/4244_2.png) [@elinasadiq](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/elinasadiq)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2024, 5:06am UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/seeking-advice-on-streamlining-data-models-in-dbt/14554/1 "2024-07-29T05:06:38Z")

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Hi everyone,

I’m relatively new to dbt and loving the journey so far! I’ve been working on a project where I need to streamline my data models for better performance and maintainability. I have a few questions and would appreciate any advice or suggestions from the community:

1. **Best Practices for Model Organization** : How do you structure your dbt models and directories to keep everything organized and efficient?
2. **Optimizing Query Performance** : What are some tips or techniques you use to optimize the performance of your dbt models? Are there specific strategies that have worked well for you?
3. **Managing Incremental Models** : I’m planning to implement incremental models. What are the common pitfalls to watch out for, and how can I ensure they run smoothly?
4. **Documentation and Testing** : How do you keep your models well-documented and tested? Any tools or practices you recommend?

I have been through these resources/articles [Data modeling techniques for more modularity](https://www.getdbt.com/analytics-engineering/modular-data-modeling-technique) [splunk interview questions](https://www.igmguru.com/blog/splunk-interview-questions/), and they are quite informative but I wanted to learn more from community members.

I’m eager to hear about your experiences and any resources you can point me to. Thanks in advance for your help!

Best Regards 🙂

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**Author:** ![tyler](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discourse.getdbt.com/tyler/32/4230_2.png) [@tyler](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/tyler)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2024, 4:53pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/seeking-advice-on-streamlining-data-models-in-dbt/14554/2 "2024-08-03T16:53:11Z")

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Hey! I’ll point you to a couple things right off the bat. For your first question, I highly recommend reading up on data modeling techniques. The Data Warehouse Toolkit (by Ralph Kimball) is a great resource for learning how to model data. It’s not so dbt-specific, but this is based on decades of learning how to model data for usability from a business perspective. As for documentation, get familiar with the [dbt-codegen](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-codegen) package as this will help you generate yaml much faster for your models, increasing the likelihood you document them fully!