DataFlux

I am on an airplane again! This time, I am on my way to be a panel member at a local CIO Forum. What fun is that? I will be with two clients answering questions about business intelligence, and the impact it has on an organization. I get to be the BI Expert. I like that part!

Data integration, and data quality issues are going to be on the top of the list for this discussion. For example, for those organizations who have already ventured down the path of BI, maybe now is a good time to STOP and regroup a bit. Here are some examples of change:

• Technology and/or best practices have changed since the first iteration of the data warehouse. For example, originally we only created a data warehouse, and now need to create data marts based on usage and performance.
• Business requirements have changed, and you may need to really start thinking about analytics instead of just reporting. Analytics may require extensions in the data, and technical architectures. Try looking at usage, maybe no one even uses that data anymore.
• Maybe you skipped doing data profiling during the first iteration, and the data is not high quality (lots of sparcity). Try doing profiling on the existing data warehouse to determine how much change is required to achieve the level of data quality required by the business users.
• Maybe data integration was a nightmare in the first iteration, and so you left it up to the report writers to sort out , which is now the reason for some performance issues. Consider determining the need for integration in the organization, and bite off a small sensible starting point.
• The organization is now on the path of master data management, and a data governance plan. Consider feeding the data warehouse from the master data (based on data governance procedures).

Any of these reasons are good enough to step back, take a breath, and regroup!