|
One can go through many references (like business plans, SWOT, strategy blue-print, key management presentations, goals-sheets of key personnel) and internalize them before starting interviews of
business requirement phase for a BI initiative. or else one runs the risk of lack of control as
well as responses driven by immediate crises instead of medium to long term
perspective.
This is a make or break factor in the business requirement phase in the Data
warehouse initiative.
As a prudent practice, you should ask the business users open ended questions,
like "What are the top 5 business questions, which you want to get answered?".
If you give them choices out of which to select, you may be influencing their
thought process, which is not advisable.
However at the same time, you should be able to ask intelligence questions to
probe or validate the answers given by the business users. For example, if a
business user tells a business priority, which is not in line with the strategy
plan document published two months back, you should step in a question this
ms-alignment.
The biggest advantage of doing your home-work is that you would be able to relate
to the business users, as they will realize that you understand their world
and context. This will encourage them to open-up and provide you more insights.
They will not like to spend time to educate you on their business.
|
