Thoughts from a Business Analytics Vendor in Vancouver

Reports Development Project Process

Since a decade ago, almost every organization has been seeking ways to more intelligent, efficient decisions. Unlike other projects, business analytics projects have an infinite and non-static scope that can vary from one business person to another and from one department to another. The purpose of an integrated decision-support environment is to provide cross-organizational business analysis capabilities to all stakeholders in all departments of the organization.

Business Analytics project management in most organizations is treated as an administrative reporting function. Detailed project planning and hands-on daily project control are often minimized, if not ignored, especially when organizations try to get several business intelligence applications up and running very quickly. In their shortsightedness, organizations forget that extended planning activities often lead to shorter testing and implementation cycles and thus shorter delivery times—exactly what the business community wants.

While a business analytics initiative is underway, if organizations plan to switch vendors and products, it can be costly in terms of time and money. Vendors often cannot offer the comprehensive solutions that businesses expect because the vendors are still struggling to integrate all the pieces of their own intelligence products.

Project planning is not a one-time activity. Since a project plan is based on estimates, which are frequently no more than best guesses, project plans must be adjusted constantly. For example, when a reporting project (fig 1.) reaches the development stage, it will be an agile process that requires several iterations following three steps:

1. Requirements Gathering: Business analysts (BA’s) gather requirements from end users. This process also involves providing consulting services and sharing knowledge on how to improve existing reports. Migrating reports from old software to new software comes with unique challenges as requirements and capabilities may have changed.
2. Development and Testing: Report builders design and construct reports, based on the information provided by business analysts. Significant effort is spent on query optimization and quality design of the report. Report builders use test data to make sure that report output is accurate.
3. Review: End users review the reports and through day-to-day use offer insights for improvement.

The development approach in a business analytics roadmap is neither as linear nor as rigorous as that followed in traditional methodologies. It is a much more dynamic approach to application development.

Despite the discipline, there is constant rework during the development cycle so time for it should be built into the project plan. For example, analysis activities can show up on the project plan as early as the Project Planning phase, and as late as the Analytics Reports Development phase. Or there could be a plan for another short iteration through database design activities during Extract/Transform/Load phase.

The project plan must reflect this dynamic nature of report development. Since changes and setbacks are to be expected, certain “completed activities” will have to be revisited and reworked. The project plan should anticipate that and reflect it on the schedule. The easiest way to plan for these internal iterations is to use the concept of “looping” or “refactoring” by dividing the project into multiple small sub-projects, each with a deliverable, albeit not completed.  These small wins will help demonstrate success to stakeholders or identify larger issues in the project. Then each deliverable should be revisited and revised, adding more data and more functionality until the entire Business Analytics application is completed with the desired final deliverable. This iterative refinement approach gives the project development effort the feel of prototyping.

OptimusAnalytics has gained insights into various phases of project planning while working with many clients. We would be happy to share our experiences with you. For more details, contact me directly at rupmeet.singh@optimusinfo.com