Trigger and initiation of a Data-Warehouse Project:
The Data Warehouse need is triggered from the following scenarios: - Deployment of Analysis tools by the competition.
- The business need of Analysis in terms of response time and delivery is not fulfilled.
- The trustworthiness of data in the analysis/MIS is suspect.
- The Analysis and MIS generated by Different functions don’t match.
- A strategic need is driving a level of analysis, which can be best provided OR sustained by Data Warehouse.
Typically one of the business users/sponsors OR the CIO having seen the needs highlighted by the users, could request of 'Preliminary Assessment'
The Awareness and DW project initiation session with stakeholders
Given the size of the organization and the level of readiness, the CIO OR 'driving' business unit could get the stakeholders for an awareness session, highlighting the un-quantified business case of Data Warehouse initiative, share some case studies and finally agreeing with the stakeholders for scoping the project.
Identifying a Data warehouse Initiative Sponsor
With in the same platform, a sponsor for the initiative will be agreed upon, who could be the most impacted stakeholder OR the strategy driver of the Data Warehouse initiative. Data Warehouse is a considerable change management exercise, which requires people to share information and to transition into more fact-based measurements. As you will see in further chapters, the delivery of Data Warehouse initiative is only half the job done. Bringing a cultural change of using that data and capability, is a much bigger challenge. The sponsor should be having maximum among the following set of qualities:
- Most impacted by the initiatives.
- Fits into his/her defined role.
- Has a good currency in the organization at a strategic/senior management level.
- Has a track record of being a good change manager.
TIP- Its recommended to get an industry expert for awareness sessions for data warehouse (or overall BI), who has got a good domain knowledge on your industry. The typical gap which we have seen in this awareness sessions is that they tend to become bookish.
TIP- Do not oversell Data Warehouse in these awareness session. You can refer Data Warehouse has unique challenges.
TIP- One cannot assume that Data Warehouse project initiation will happen within a short time span, in case the management is not excited about it. The best way to manage it, is to invite a Vendor to do a proof of concept for a simplistic data-mart from a single and stable system and demonstrate a high level capabilities. |
