It is not uncommon for companies to want to go it alone when it comes to BI/DW, and that impulse is understandable. There are plenty of good books on data warehousing, and there are many excellent educational opportunities via organizations such as TDWI. The maturity of data warehousing concepts and methods, and the seemingly straightforward technological task of moving data from one database to another, combine to mask the business and organizational complexities of delivering true BI. Accordingly, large successful IT shops are attracted to the savings that can come from not engaging BI/DW consultants and/or hiring BI/DW specialists. Sometimes this approach works, and other times DecisionPath is called in when an organization is not getting the results it desires from its BI/DW initiative.
A Course Redirection Assessment is essentially the same as a BI/DW Assessment except that the company has already started down the road toward its BI objectives. The focus, scope, and objectives of a Course Redirection Assessment can vary considerably, and thus a typical pre-engagement activity is aimed at bounding the assessment in terms of:
- Scope of the BI/DW Initiative that is the subject of the Course Redirection Assessment: Enterprise, SBU, Department, Function, or Workgroup
- Scope of the Course Redirection Assessment, which can range from a narrowly focused effort to a very high-level effort aimed at the entire BI/DW Initiative
- Objectives of the Course Redirection Assessment, which generally include responding to one or more of the following problem statements:
- “We’re not getting the expected ROI from our BI/DW initiative”
- “There’s a lack of usage – people aren’t using the BI applications”
- “We have a lack of funding and business sponsorship”
- “We don’t have a good handle on requirements”
- “It takes too long to run queries against our data warehouse”
- “Our current architecture won’t meet new requirements from users”
- “The BI tools we have don’t support our current information needs”
- “User excitement about the potential of BI has created unrealistic delivery expectations”
- “Different data stores provide different answers to the same business question”
- “We have data quality problems – the data won’t tie back to the source data”
- “We’re not sure what roles and skills we need for our BI/DW team”
- “We don’t have a handle on how many people we will need for our BI/DW team”
- “We’re having trouble figuring out what a realistic budget would be”
- “Business users keep changing the requirements and we can’t keep up”
- Desired Deliverables, which are typically an assessment report and/or an assessment briefing to a management group. Some clients also desire high-level program plans, and/or a business case; and/or a delineation of options.
Once the scope of the Course Redirection Assessment is defined and bounded, DecisionPath works collaboratively and efficiently to establish a schedule and resource profile that fits your timetable and budget. Our experience has been that these Assessments typically last anywhere from 4 weeks to six months, depending on the scope and available resources. An effective, focused Course Redirection Assessment can be a key tool for getting your BI/DW initiative back on track and clearly focused on delivering BI to improve business performance. |
