DW Toolkit
Chapter 1
Defining Business
Requirements
DW Lifecycle
Project
Planning
Business
Requirements
Definition
Technical
Architecture
Design
Product
Selection &
Installation
Dimensional
Modeling
Physical
Design
BI
Application
Specification
Growth
ETL Design &
Development
BI
Application
Development
Project Management
Deployment
Maintenance
Goal: Enhance Business Value
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Technology is important; business value
is mandatory.
Recruit strong sponsorship
Define enterprise-level business
requirements
Prioritize business requirements
Plan the project
Define project-level business
requirements
Sponsorship



Business sponsors (more than one) take a
lead role in determining the purpose, content,
and priorities of the DW/BI system.
Visionary: sense the value with some idea of
how to apply it
Resourceful: can obtain resources and effect
organizational change
Reasonable: balance enthusiasm with an
understanding of needed time and resources
Gathering Enterprise-Level
Requirements
Prepare
Conduct
Business Interviews
Conduct IT
Interviews
Write up Interview Summaries
Identify Business Processes
Build Initial Bus Matrix
Conduct Prioritization Session
Write Requirements Definition
Use Data Profiles
to Research Data
Sources
The interview process

Conduct
Business Interviews
Conduct IT
Interviews


Write up Interview Summaries
Identify Business Processes
Build Initial Bus Matrix

The Interview
Documentation
Themes and
processes
The bus
architecture
What do you want to know?


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What is the problem area?
How does the business you approach it?
Is the data available?
Who will use the results?
Who cares?
Subjects
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(pp. 116 – 117)
Business Executive
•
•
What are the business issues?
What is your vision?
Business Manager or Analyst
•
•
•
What are your measures of success?
What data do you use?
What analysis do you typically do?
Data Audit
•
•
•
Data quality or quantity issues?
Potential roadblocks (political or technical)?
How is ad hoc analysis conducted?
Results of the interviews

Analytic themes and business goals
•
•
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Themes: fundamental questions that the business
wants answered
Goals: state that the business aspires to
Business processes: sources of data to
support analytic themes
Dimensions: entities or categories that define
the themes
Business value: how much is solving the
problem worth
Interviews

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Individual or group
Roles
•
•
Lead Interviewer
Scribe
Pre-interview research
Questionnaire
Agenda
User Preparation
Write-up
Interview Roles

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
Lead Interviewer(s):
•
direct the questions and adapt to the conversation
Scribe:
•
•
•
take notes.
interject if the lead interviewer misses something.
write up the session
Observer (not more than two)
•
observe – not participate
The interview process


Introduce everyone: make everyone feel
comfortable.
Introduce the subject
• Remember your role
• Verify communication
• Define terminology
• Establish peer basis: know interviewees
vocabulary and business understanding
The interview process (cont.)
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Be flexible
•
•
be prepared to schedule additional interviews
respect your interviewees time and reschedule if
needed
Avoid burnout
•
•
don’t schedule too many at once
leave time between sessions
Manage Expectations
The interview process (cont.)

Wrap up the interview

Write up the interview
• Summarize
• Ask for permission to call back
• Get documentation
• soon (2 hours to 2 days)
Tape recorders
Cannot really replace people
 Ask first
 May make subjects nervous
 Require listening to the meeting twice
Facilitated sessions

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Each one takes more time than
interviews, but may generate more
Requires an experienced facilitator
Requires an initial understanding of the
user area
Participants feed of of each others ideas
Participants can negotiate
disagreements
Caveats
The one question to never ask is “What do you
want in your computer system?” That is your
job, not theirs.
You need to be brave enough to ask executives
what keeps them up at night?
The interview team needs to resist the temptation
to focus only on the top 5 reports or top ten
questions.
Continually manage expectations.
Bus Matrix
Process
Dat
e
Produc Vendor Shippe Dist
t
r
Cntr
Store Promo
Purchase
Orders
X
X
X
Dist Cntr
Deliveries
X
X
X
Dst Cntr
Inventory
X
X
Store
Deliveries
X
X
Store
Inventory
X
X
X
Store Sales
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Requirements Findings
Document (Business Case)
Establishes the relevance and credibility of
the data warehouse project.
Ties the business requirements to the
realistic availability of data.
Prioritization
High
Stars
Business
Value
Dogs
Low
Low
Feasibility
High
Initial Project

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High value
Strong sponsorship
Low difficulty
Moderately visible
Single data source