Data Management & Warehousing

Tag: Project Management

  • Addressing Business Intelligence Data Quality

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    macleanwalker
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    A friend of mine posted a link to Michael W. Dobson’s TeleMapics Blog entitled Google Maps announces a 400 year advantage over Apple Maps about Apple’s problems with the release of their own mapping solution with iOS6. These problems are well documented elsewhere but Michael’s post highlights problems not just associated with mapping data but common across…

  • Bookshelf

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    macleanwalker
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    Here is our bookshelf, a list of useful and favorite books in the development of software, management of projects and business intelligence. Click on the image to see the Amazon description. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister (1988) [amazon asin=0932633056&template=thumbnail&chan=default] The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks…

  • BI Business Requirements

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    macleanwalker
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    Another ETIS presentation from Stockholm in October 2010 This presentation looks at what it takes to develop good business requirements for business intelligence projects. It starts with the proposition that  “70% of all documented requirements are worthless” – Why ? Written but never referred to (Shelf-ware) Out of date before they are built Cover the wrong things Can’t be…

  • The Business Case For Business Intelligence

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    macleanwalker
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    This white paper looks at the business case that should lie behind the decision to build a data warehouse and provide a business intelligence solution. There are three primary drivers for making the investment in a business intelligence solution Measurement and management of the business process Analysis of why things change in the business in…

  • Analysis by ETL …

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    macleanwalker
    in

    Performing source-system analysis by writing ETL is just about the most expensive way you can do it; but many organisations do exactly that. Why? Because they “can’t afford” to do their analysis the cheaper way. No, this does not make sense. This is how it works… In most data warehousing projects, business analysts are separated…

  • The project wiki – a cost reduction tool

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    macleanwalker
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    Some readers will be familiar with TED: Ideas Worth Spreading a series of talks on just about everything worthwhile in Technology, Education and Design. I recently revisited Yochai Benklers talk on the new open-source economics from 2005 where he explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organisation. The principle discussed is one…

  • Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

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    macleanwalker
    in

    The deception in our case is the accuracy of the data and the return on investment of the data warehouse solution. Too often projects make compromises in the implementation of a business intelligence solution that create massive cost and user dis-satisfaction downstream that lead to the failure of BI projects: For example: * In the…

  • Can Business Intelligence Be Agile ?

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    macleanwalker
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    The agile manifesto and it’s underlying principles set out four key values for developing software solutions: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan If an organisation is willing to accept these values for software development then how much more important should adoption of them be for…

  • Data Warehouse Project Management

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    macleanwalker
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    Data warehouse projects pose a specific set of challenges for the project manager. Whilst most IT projects are a development to support a well defined pattern of work a data warehouse is, by design, there to support users asking ad hoc questions of the data available to the business. It is also a project that…

  • Ready for Change?

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    macleanwalker
    in

    A presentation given to the 3rd Citia BTC Conference in Kiev. This presentation looks at the problems of creating a long-term sustainable data warehousing environment in the context of the change that will affect them: Data warehouses are constantly in a state of flux The cost of build is small by comparison with the operational…