Identify the Data Warehouse Business themes
As you will see in the other chapters, we have tried to place the stages of this project in the same lines as a typical IT systems development methodology, so that readers can relate to it. While the stages are similar how ever the methodology and approach at ground level is significantly different.
The difference between a Data Warehouse and a business application is that a business application has clear deliverables, actions, functions that any process manager can relate to. Most of the business applications deal with operational domain, whether back-end OR front-end (field) operations.
However, data-warehouse provides data to applications which help in decision, analysis, performance management, which take it into the realm of management, leadership and strategy. As we move into these plains, the project needs to manage high level of ambiguities, and more subtle needs and considerations. That’s why Data Warehouse initiatives need a higher level of change management. Once we have the 'Go Ahead' on the project initiation, the core stakeholders' team is established and sponsor is identified, we list out the business objectives. These objectives will be mostly worked out in the back-end by going through. - Management presentations.
- Organization Business Plans.
- The existing MIS and Scorecards being generated.
- Any strategy documents.
- Goal sheets of key management personnel.
....To understand the following: - The top elements of Strategy Blueprint and business objectives.
- The Strategic Business Plan of next 12 months horizon.
- The top 10-15 initiatives.
- The Measures of success and standards for the above.
- The top challenges and help items linked to the above.
- Long-term vs. short terms business objectives.
- The above segregated across shareholder, customer and process perspective.
Apart from the details available, do have brief sessions with the sponsor OR some other stakeholders on their views. In case the organization hasn’t got a well-documented Strategy Blueprint and Strategic Business Plan, ensure that a quick exercise is done with sponsor and core team prior to session on themes prioritization. The examples of the Data Warehouse business themes can be as follows: - Maximize profitability of business portfolio.
- Maximize the value from the existing customer set.
- Maximize the annual renewals of the product.
PLEASE REFER Execution-MiHPractice Tool DW Project Initiation- Business Themes Listing
Prioritization of Data Warehouse Themes for project scoping While listing out the business themes, please ensure the following: - The themes are distinct, and logically ground with least overlap with other themes.
- Each theme has to have an owner.
- Each theme should be mapped with the specific business plan parameter, measure of success OR a goal sheet.
- The potential business impact against each theme is listed out.
- Major themes/perspective like Revenue, Productivity, Cost, effectiveness, enhanced service and reputation are covered.
- Don’t list the business impact in terms of High/medium/Low. Let this be highlighted by the business stakeholders/Sponsors.
- The Expected cost and time impact for developing the theme to be listed out. This is worked out depending upon the readiness level (refer 'Data Warehouse Readiness Assessment' chapter), and size of work involved with the theme.
- The stakeholders against each theme are listed out.
Once this set of ready, we should call the stakeholder session, where the theme listing along with all the associated information is presented, for prioritization. The first track is to identify the business prioritization. Two possible challenges in this track are: - All themes are marked, as high- Best way to handle is to ask people to mark their 'Top 3' themes.
- The stakeholders taking a 'functional' view only – Check with functional heads to mark the 'top 3' themes, which are linked to their function.
The second track is the do-ability/feasibility/cost/time impact of addressing a given theme. There is a debate on if we should share the do-ability with the business owners, while they are working out the business impact? This can make them float towards 'higher feasibility' themes, as they know that low feasibility items will any way not be delivered. ExecutionMiH.com vote would be to share this information, as the do-ability at that stage is purely indicative.
PLEASE REFER Execution-MiHPractice Tool Data Warehouse Project Initiation- Business Themes Listing Guidelines: - Typically keep the business themes not beyond 15 (recommended items are around 10).
- The High and Medium business impact items should not constitute more than 60% of the list of objectives.
- In case of doubt, place the business potential towards the lower side (select medium between High & medium), and the feasibility on the higher side (select high between high and medium).
Data-Warehouse Road-Map, DW Project Scope and DW Planning
After the list has been prioritized, pick-up the items, which are high/medium impact and high/medium feasibility. All items with either low business impact OR low business feasibility should not be included. Chances are that you would be left with a portfolio of around 30-40% of the list of objectives. The scoping and business casing includes:
- Pick-up each theme and create a 'scope' one pager, containing:
- the back-ground, business objectives
- Data Warehouse objectives
- Phase 1 scope
- measures of success
- quantified benefits and all the items included in the 'Data Warehouse theme list' like business owners and stakeholders.
PLEASE REFER Execution-MiHPractice Tool Data Warehouse Project Initiation- Business Themes One pager - Quantification of benefits is sometimes a challenge. One way to handle it is:
Identify the enhancement in business objectives i.e.,increase in the agents' productivity by X %, OR increase the renewals by Y %, OR increase the campaign effectiveness by Z%. Post this, convert these enhancements into money terms. - Create the overall road map, containing phase 1 and phase II scopes. Both phase II & I should ideally be coming out of the high/medium list of business impact + feasibility.
- Come-out with the overall cost. The cost of data warehouse is a combination of:
- 'core' cost, which includes hardware, licenses, maintenance etc,
- theme related cost, which includes the Data Marts development cost related to a theme.
However, across data marts as well, there are many common elements like common dimensions. Therefore typically you will have the first phase of the project having lot of foundation elements, due to which theme level costing will need some heuristics to be built in.
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