Business Intelligence for Dummies

INTRODUCTION • Getting the most out of your roadmap •

Selecting the degree of centralization

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Getting a laser-focused plan

• Analyzing your solution’s degree of coupling

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WHAT A ROADMAP IS (AND ISN’T)  Statement of overall business problem(s) and the specific scope of the solution.  Business perspective of the solution — for example, what information needs your system will meet that it wasn’t meeting before.  Initial financial analysis, including ROI projections.  Current condition of the organization’s information infrastructure—including a discussion of where all the relevant data is being housed and what condition it’s in.  High-level review of hardware requirements, emphasizing any new platforms you may need to implement.  Discussion of existing and new software that will be utilized for the BI solution.  General make-up of project team and division of responsibilities.  A section on risks, constraints, and assumptions that lays out where things can go wrong, as well as the known limits of the BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR DUMMIES BI implementation.

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A COUPLE QUESTION

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HOW TO CHOOSE

Organizational culture • Autocratic • Entrepreneurial

Organizational Structure BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR DUMMIES

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BI ARCHITECTURE ALTERNATIVES  How and where will the data be maintained?  What will the integration schedule be?

 What tools will sit on which desktops — throughout the organization?

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ARCHITECTURE EVALUATION

Hardware

Data Management

End User Tools

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OTHER SOLUTION ELEMENTS  Operating systems  Network protocols

 Server hardware  Primary database vendor  Data Warehouse and Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes  The kinds of front-end BI tools you absolutely must have  The kinds of front-end BI tools that would be nice to have

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QUESTION ASKED DURING PLANNING PHASE  Which solution components work well together? And which don’t?  What infrastructure is currently in place and does it have spare capacity?  Does the company have existing relationships with some of the target vendors?

THE SHORT LIST  The goal is to produce a short list of architecture alternatives that satisfy all of your bare minimum requirements, and hopefully supply some nice-tohave features as well. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR DUMMIES

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EXAMINING COSTS FOR EACH ALTERNATIVE

Keep your eyes for expenses such as

Software License

Hardware acquisition cost

Service and Training and maintenance support cost cost

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LOOKING AT TECHNOLOGICAL RISK Some examples of risk associated with IT implementation are

Software has unknown bugs that pupate and hatch at inopportune times. Software doesn’t perform as promised by the vendor Products don’t work together as well as projected.

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MAKING YOUR DECISION Verify Your Information

Revisit your criteria Get a new Perspectiv e

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DEVELOPING A PHASED, INCREMENTAL BI ROADMAP

Highest Value

Least Risky

Easy to deliver

Deciding Where to Start BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR DUMMIES

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DEVELOPING A PHASED, INCREMENTAL BI ROADMAP

Keeping Score

Deciding What Comes Next

• Prepare a score card with key variables • Rate them in order to decide your priorities

• Move ahead according to previously made decision • Review and refine the deliverables from the previous stage

• Planning • • For Contingen • cies

Cost Overflow Technological Risk High Human resource turnover Loss of project sponsor BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR DUMMIES

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DEVELOPING A PHASED, INCREMENTAL BI ROADMAP • Tiny changes in your scheme could impact your plan. • Insignificant updates can have big impact Dealing with moving targets on your project.

Leaving time for periodic “architectural tune-ups”

• A BI system is a constantly evolving organism • You need to updated or in easier term tune up the system from time to time.

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