Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision-Support Applications

2017-07-07 02:10:07

Segments of this book should be read and referenced by every member of the BI project team, including business representatives. It is important that all project participants understand "the big picture" and how they and their roles fit into it. This also applies to third-party consultants , who can fill any technical role on the project team. Understanding this larger view of the project and its development effort is essential in maintaining a level of enthusiasm and cooperation necessary for the team. Below we spotlight team members ' roles and provide lists of the most useful and applicable chapters for each specific role.

Business Representatives

Although the development steps are technical in nature, business representatives involved in BI projects must understand what activities need to occur during the development effort. Business representatives are expected to participate as full-time members of the project core teams , and some of the activities described in this book will be assigned to them. Table P.1 lists chapters of particular interest to business representatives.

Table P.1. Chapters for Business Representatives

Chapter	Title
	Guide to the Development Steps
1	Step 1: Business Case Assessment
2	Step 2: Enterprise Infrastructure Evaluation ( especially Section B, Nontechnical Infrastructure Evaluation)
3	Step 3: Project Planning
4	Step 4: Project Requirements Definition
5	Step 5: Data Analysis
6	Step 6: Application Prototyping
7	Step 7: Meta Data Repository Analysis
9	Step 9: Extract/Transform/Load Design
13	Step 13: Data Mining
16	Step 16: Release Evaluation

Business Sponsors

Although business sponsors are not directly involved in the daily development effort, they should make frequent checks on the health of the project as well as the project team. In order to do this, business sponsors must have a comprehensive, high-level understanding of the effort. Table P.2 lists the chapters recommended for business sponsors.

Table P.2. Chapters for Business Sponsors

Chapter	Title
	Guide to the Development Steps
1	Step 1: Business Case Assessment
2	Step 2: Enterprise Infrastructure Evaluation (especially Section B, Nontechnical Infrastructure Evaluation)
3	Step 3: Project Planning
4	Step 4: Project Requirements Definition
5	Step 5: Data Analysis
13	Step 13: Data Mining
16	Step 16: Release Evaluation

Project Managers

The project manager is responsible for the entire development effort and must therefore be intimately familiar with all development steps. He or she must read all chapters in the book and use the matrices in Part II as an ongoing reference guide, as shown in Table P.3.

BI projects are not for inexperienced project managers. A thorough understanding of project management principles is required.

Table P.3. Chapters for Project Managers

Chapter	Title
	Guide to the Development Steps
1 “16	Part I: Stages and Steps
17 “21	Part II: At a Glance

Technicians

Various types of technicians work on BI projects. Some technicians are assigned to the core team on a full-time basis, such as a lead developer; others are on the extended team supporting the development activities on an as-needed basis, such as a security officer. (For an itemized list of roles assigned to the core team and to the extended team, refer to Chapter 0.)

Core team technicians should read all the chapters in the book and use the matrices as an ongoing reference guide, as shown in Table P.4.

Extended team technicians should read, at a minimum, the chapters listed in Table P.5. However, these technicians would gain a greater understanding of the BI decision-support development process if they read all the chapters in the book.

Table P.4. Chapters for Core Team Technicians

Chapter	Title
	Guide to the Development Steps
1 “16	Part I: Stages and Steps
17 “21	Part II: At a Glance

Table P.5. Chapters for Extended Team Technicians

Chapter	Title
	Guide to the Development Steps
2	Step 2: Enterprise Infrastructure Evaluation (especially Section A, Technical Infrastructure Evaluation)
3	Step 3: Project Planning
4	Step 4: Project Requirements Definition
16	Step 16: Release Evaluation
	Additional chapters on an as-needed basis (For example, an ETL developer should read Step 9: Extract/Transform/Load Design, Step 11: Extract/Transform/Load Development, and Step 15: Implementation.)