1. First defining what BI is and what it is not. Is it just reporting, analytics and dashboards? Or does it involve ETL, DW, portal, MDM, etc as well?
2. If former, you then need to define linkages, dependencies, overlaps and integration with all of the latter. If latter, it’s a whole different subject. You then really do need to read a few thick books.
3. Ensure senior business executive commitment and top down mandate. If you cannot get that, do not proceed until you do. Two ways to “sell BI” to them (even though that’s not a good position to be in:
- Educate them on BI ROI, and
- Show them how you compare to your competitors and peers within or across your industries, geographies and markets.
4. Establish BI PMO, BICC, BI governance, etc.
5. Documents the current state of your BI environment.
6. Envision and propose a target state for the BI environment that includes identifying:
- Requirements for all
- Styles of BI (reporting, ad-hoc querying, OLAP, dashboards, etc)
- People and roles: all stakeholders that will be affected
- Business vs. IT roles
- Decision types (strategic vs. operational)
- End user BI self service requirements
- Agility, flexibility requirements
- Process requirements
- BI on BI requirements
- Dependencies, constraints (standards, other projects, initiatives, etc)
- Architecture
- Technical
- Metadata
- Data
- Integration (with other apps, processes, portals, etc) architecture
- Information delivery (desktop, portal, mobile, disconnected, etc)
- Operational, training, support requirements
7. Based on the target state requirements, build vendor/technology shortlist, considering potential multiple vendor co-existence scenarios
8. Identify gaps between the current state and the targets state
9. Design a road map to close the gaps and achieve the target state with
- Priorities and dependencies
- Strategic vs. Tactical steps (or a mix)
- Top down vs. bottom up design approaches (or a mix)
- Plans, such as
- Change management
- QA
- Risk management
- Scope management
- Communications
10. Select software vendor(s) and (if necessary) systems integrator
I am sure I missed something, so, comments?
They missed a couple of key things (that I didn't), and I think your perspective would have been helpful.
To be fair though - they seems to have largely followed this same process - and I know other expert BI consultancies do as well.
Mick
You need to monitor for any changes and provide for alerts creating a true real time state.
You need to lock down the process and data to ensure data integrity and security.
You need to consider and plan for converting or managing formats,currencies or units of measure.
Jim Kolassa Stonebond Technologies