DW Toolkit Chapter 1 Defining Business Requirements.

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DW Toolkit Chapter 1 Defining Business Requirements

Transcript of DW Toolkit Chapter 1 Defining Business Requirements.

DW Toolkit

Chapter 1

Defining Business Requirements

DW Lifecycle

Dimensional Modeling

ProjectPlanning

BusinessRequirementsDefinition

PhysicalDesign

ETL Design &Development Deployment

Growth

Maintenance

BIApplicationSpecification

BIApplicationDevelopment

TechnicalArchitectureDesign

ProductSelection &Installation

Project Management

Goal: Enhance Business Value

Technology is important; business value is mandatory.

Recruit strong sponsorship Define enterprise-level business

requirements Prioritize business requirements Plan the project Define project-level business requirements

Sponsorship

Business sponsors (more than one) take a lead role in determining the purpose, content, and priorities of the DW/BI system.

Visionary: sense the value with some idea of how to apply it

Resourceful: can obtain resources and effect organizational change

Reasonable: balance enthusiasm with an understanding of needed time and resources

Gathering Enterprise-Level Requirements

Prepare

ConductBusiness Interviews

Conduct IT Interviews

Write up Interview Summaries

Identify Business Processes

Conduct Prioritization Session

Write Requirements Definition

Use Data Profiles to Research Data

Sources

Build Initial Bus Matrix

The interview process The Interview Documentation Themes and

processes The bus

architecture

ConductBusiness Interviews

Conduct IT Interviews

Write up Interview Summaries

Identify Business Processes

Build Initial Bus Matrix

What do you want to know?

What is the problem area? How does the business you approach it? Is the data available? Who will use the results? Who cares?

Subjects (pp. 116 – 117)

Business Executive• What are the business issues?

• What is your vision? Business Manager or Analyst

• What are your measures of success?

• What data do you use?

• What analysis do you typically do? Data Audit

• Data quality or quantity issues?

• Potential roadblocks (political or technical)?

• How is ad hoc analysis conducted?

Results of the interviews

Analytic themes and business goals• Themes: fundamental questions that the business

wants answered

• Goals: state that the business aspires to Business processes: sources of data to

support analytic themes Dimensions: entities or categories that define

the themes Business value: how much is solving the

problem worth

Interviews

Individual or group Roles

• Lead Interviewer

• Scribe Pre-interview research Questionnaire Agenda User Preparation Write-up

Interview Roles

Lead Interviewer(s): • direct the questions and adapt to the conversation

Scribe: • take notes.

• interject if the lead interviewer misses something.

• write up the session

Observer (not more than two)• observe – not participate

The interview process

Introduce everyone: make everyone feel comfortable.

Introduce the subject• Remember your role

• Verify communication

• Define terminology

• Establish peer basis: know interviewees vocabulary and business understanding

The interview process (cont.)

Be flexible• be prepared to schedule additional interviews

• respect your interviewees time and reschedule if needed

Avoid burnout• don’t schedule too many at once

• leave time between sessions

Manage Expectations

The interview process (cont.)

Wrap up the interview• Summarize

• Ask for permission to call back

• Get documentation

Write up the interview• soon (2 hours to 2 days)

Tape recorders

Cannot really replace people Ask first May make subjects nervous Require listening to the meeting twice

Facilitated sessions

Each one takes more time than interviews, but may generate more

Requires an experienced facilitator Requires an initial understanding of the

user area Participants feed of of each others ideas Participants can negotiate

disagreements

Caveats

The one question to never ask is “What do you want in your computer system?” That is your job, not theirs.

You need to be brave enough to ask executives what keeps them up at night?

The interview team needs to resist the temptation to focus only on the top 5 reports or top ten questions.

Continually manage expectations.

Bus Matrix

Process Date

Product

Vendor Shipper

Dist Cntr

Store Promo

Purchase Orders

X X X X

Dist Cntr Deliveries

X X X X X

Dst Cntr Inventory

X X X

Store Deliveries

X X X X X

Store Inventory

X X X

Store Sales X X X X

Requirements Findings Document (Business Case)

Establishes the relevance and credibility of the data warehouse project.

Ties the business requirements to the realistic availability of data.

Prioritization

Stars

Dogs

High

Business

Value

HighLow

Low

Feasibility

Initial Project

High value Strong sponsorship Low difficulty Moderately visible Single data source