By Bob Newell, Senior Consultant
One phenomenon I’m seeing with clients’ business intelligence development groups is IT relying on a one-size fits all development method. And the end results never seem to satisfy the business users, who are likely funding the project in the first place.
Any experienced developer asks the questions: “Who is my customer, and what’s the end product I’m expected to deliver to that customer?”
For a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), you’re trying to support a business process or a business operation. Whether it’s an application for data entry, a call center, or a network application that’s moving data from one part of the company to another, it’s all about the business processes and operations.
In the case of BI, you’re really trying to build an analytical environment. You need to understand what business initiatives need analytics, what questions your business users are asking, and what data is needed to support the answers to those questions. These types of issues are very different than those in standard application development, where the resulting functionality is much more straightforward and easy to articulate.
At a simple level, developers of both operational and analytical systems should understand the same concept when choosing a development method. Are you automating a business process? Then perhaps a standard SDLC is fitting. But if you’re building an analytical environment, a specific BI development lifecycle is the likely ticket to success.
Bob Newell is a senior consultant at Baseline. He has spent his career bridging technical and business disciplines, focusing on the effective utilization of data to advance strategic business objectives. This includes domain expertise in many technical disciplines such as database architecture, data presentation, CDI and ETL strategies, and enterprise architecture. Bob also manages the development of BI Application Portfolios and Business Requirements.
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