Rigor? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Rigor! The Importance of Process
Most of Baseline’s clients already have a general sense of their desired outcomes before they retain us. They need to launch a new project or begin a design or development effort, and they want the benefit of experience to start the right way.
The savviest clients welcome the knowledge transfer that accompanies working hand-in-hand with a consulting firm. They often take a “learn it, watch it, practice it, entrench it” approach. This lets them embrace change in an incremental way, incorporating new processes into their BI, MDM, data integration, or data warehouse development initiatives gradually, after putting them into practice.
But believe it or not, I’ve seen diagrams like this one scare the pants off of people:
Figure 1. Sample Requirement Process
When IT grumbled we weren’t surprised. Change invites discomfort. But we were amazed by the rationalizations for clinging to old ways. IT staff had been accustomed to throwing work over to some contractors who’d become fixtures onsite, filling in generic project requisition forms and write the odd SQL query. Indeed most of IT’s BI work was reactive. Most tasks were delegated, and most took more time than they should have. The fact that each of the steps in the new process required inputs, outputs, ownership, and delivery made some people in IT downright angry.
Consider manufacturing as a metaphor for IT development. As twentieth-century manufacturers embraced Henry Ford’s assembly line concept, they were ensuring:
- Predictable outcomes. By instituting repeatable processes, everyone knew what the end-state looked like.
- Easier detection of anomalies and defects. As processes make outcomes more predictable, outliers come into sharper focus.
- Enhanced productivity, since roles, work tasks, and handoff points are established and well-understood.
- The ability to track and measure productivity, quality, and desired outcomes, thereby driving further process refinements and product improvements.
- More accurate time and resource estimation, since initial scoping efforts can be informed by established process times.
As ironic as it seems, in BI—as in manufacturing—rigor actually invites flexibility. When everyone follows a sustainable development process, ownership, decision rights, and completion milestones are baked-in. Early error detection mitigates the need for reinvention and rework, allowing IT and business constituents to be clear about their commitments, and deliver them more quickly. BI teams can spend more on creative improvements, like enlisting new users, developing on-line tool and data training, and using social media tools for closer team collaboration.
Most of my new clients tend to want to talk about new technologies to acquire and organizational changes to make. What they don’t understand is that by embracing best-practice approaches to development and getting the process piece out of the way, they’re making room to have more substantive conversations about people and tools.

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