10 Mistakes to Avoid in a Business Intelligence Delivery (Part 1/ 5)

Behind every success or failure are people. People are the only differentiators. Every data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) project, whether successful or not, teaches us something. It is generally on failures that we base our new success. Having said that, it s not always necessary that you fail to learn; you can also learn from others failures, 10 of which are discussed here.


Mistake #1: A non-BI background project manager managing the end-to-end delivery of a BI initiative.

BI project management requires different techniques and methods to succeed. The breakthrough in work process and methodology that form the foundation of data warehouse delivery include such concepts as iterations and phased delivery, and from a non-data warehouse perspective it's hard to appreciate how truly revolutionary and critical these concepts are for successful BI delivery.

A project manager who drives the complete BI initiative from end-to-end has to at least be educated  on the basics of DW and BI to be able to deliver the BI project successfully. No matter how successful  an individual maybe or how much expertise he/she has in managing non-data warehousing projects, he/she will never be able to deliver the DW projects successfully if he/she does not understand the phased delivery  approach of data warehouse. Most often it becomes very challenging to convince a non-DW project manager that the analysis and design phases in DW projects go side by side and not one after the other like in traditional project delivery. If this important aspect is ignored, then the schedule and budget are going to get hit, as one always encounters changing requirements in DW projects, whether he/she likes it or not. Additionally, the fallout would be arguments and politics rather than focusing on technical solutions.

Every project delivery requires a methodology, which a project manager uses to deliver the project successfully. A project manager who by definition plans, controls and reviews all project activities must understand that a data warehousing project delivery cannot use the traditional waterfall methodology. The data warehouse methodology must take into account the fact that the delivery of BI projects happens in iterations. The success of data warehousing projects is in its phased approach.

A project manager who is not knowledgeable about BI is not able to make appropriate staffing selections for his team. The team also suffers due to lack of guidance from the leadership role as much as the goal of the BI initiative would suffer because of the management.


Mistake #2: Being in a pleasing mode with the clients rather than concentrating on feasibility and value-add from the BI project.

The client sponsoring the DW project and end users have to accept the solution which is being built by the implementation team; there is no doubt about this fact. At the end of the day, the solution being built has to be liked and should demonstrate value-add to the clients. The time and effort spent on a particular initiative should demonstrate value for money. But a word of caution. In this process, the implementation team, which is most often a service provider company offering offshore support as well, should not get into the pleasing mode with the clients and users. It might not be practically possible to implement the client s entire wish list. This should be communicated in a strong but polite way. The requirements driving the DW initiative should be validated very critically so that the best solution can be built. What cannot be done should be communicated as clearly as you communicate what can be done. Clients will definitely appreciate and welcome this kind of assessment in the initial stages of a project rather than giving explanations on architecture and infrastructure just before production or in use or acceptance testing when it s too late.