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How can one show intermediate deliverables/results to the business uses/sponsors?

Question: In an environment where projects are stretch between 6-12 months, how can one show intermediate deliverables/results to the business uses/sponsors? Can you deliver results every three months?

Majid Abai's Response: In my opinion, it is of critical importance to deliver results every 60-90 days in any project specially a DW/BI one. To us, it is a Key Performance Indicator for all of our projects. How does one do that? Excellent up-front planning, business user partnership and iterative development approach. Rather than spending too long to deliver everything, pick pieces of the puzzle that could be resolved within the 60-90 day period. Deliver these pieces even though you know they need to be improved in the next iterations. Also, include your customers in your methodology and approach and let them know that everything (process, reports, deliverables, information quality, etc.) will be improved in the next version of the product.

Larissa Moss' Response: Yes, you can. Use "extreme scoping" to break an application into multiple software releases. Each software release becomes a project of 60-90 days with a partial application deliverable to the business users. I describe this approach in three articles in the EIMInsight Magazine, Volume 1: Issues 4, 5 and 8 http://www.eiminstitute.org . You can find the older issues under "Library" and then "EIMI Archives." Or send me an email at methodfocus@earthlink.net.

Sid Adelman's Answer: The data warehouse lends itself very well to phasing which means you can deliver chunks of the capabilities and three to four months is a reasonable time frame for the phases. Instead of delivering a completed data warehouse pulled from three source files, consider delivering from only one. Instead of providing 40 columns from database A, provide only the 10 most important. Instead of providing the data warehouse to 100 business users, deliver first to 12.


Sid Adelman is a principal in Sid Adelman & Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses, in data warehouse and BI assessments, and in establishing effective data architectures and strategies. He is a regular speaker at DW conferences. Adelman chairs the "Ask the Experts" column on www.dmreview.com. He is a frequent contributor to journals that focus on data warehousing. He co-authored Data Warehouse Project Management and is the principal author on Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts and Data Strategy. He can be reached at (818) 783-9634 or visit his Web site at www.sidadelman.com.

Larissa Moss is founder and president of Method Focus Inc., a company specializing in improving the quality of business information systems. She has more than 20 years of IT experience with information asset management. Moss is coauthor of three books: Data Warehouse Project Management (Addison-Wesley, 2000), Impossible Data Warehouse Situations (Addison-Wesley, 2002) and Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision- Support Applications (Addison-Wesley, 2003). Moss can be reached at methodfocus@earthlink.net.

Majid Abai is executive vice president and director of Information Management and SOA practices at Crescent Enterprise Solutions, a systems integration organization with 12 offices and 300 consultants across the United States. During the past 24 years, he has focused on providing enterprise IT and information strategies as well as implementation of major business systems to Fortune 2000 organizations and government offices. A number of his clients have been listed as the Top Information Management Organizations by Baseline Magazine.

Abai coauthored Data Strategy, a book published by Addison-Wesley, to provide a comprehensive road map in building a sound data strategy for organizations. He has developed and teaches classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Majid is a member of the Ask the Experts panel in DM Review magazine and a regular contributor to CIOupdate.com. He is continuously invited to consult and lecture on various information management and enterprise architecture subjects globally. You can reach him at majid.abai@crescententerprise.net.

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