BI business requirements document

[seweryng]

Hi,

I have like few years of experience in delivering different Cognos solutions.
I have a little non-technical question.
I would be happy however to hear from your experience and your practice.

Imagine the world when business users are contacted only by business analysts then BA create the document called BRD which should in teory document the requirements, then this should be the base to provide design which should be sufficient to implement complete BI solution.

Practically, the BA are more skilled so what they provide is the dimension map, they call it BRD but in reality this is design. System analyst has nothing to do here so developers just deliver this design.

The problem is that BA do not have extensive knowledge in all the possiblities and applications of different Cognos tools. Users like PowerPlay so every solution to any problem looks like cube. So, finally, we do everything, OLAP, ad-hoc reporting, standart reporting, profiling, in PowerPlay and we do not even consider using such things like ReportNet or Ad-hoc reporting in Impromptu, forgeting all the other tools. We also somehow miss the advantages of combined solutions (like PowerPlay and Impromptu connected by drill through filters). Cognos professionals are bored becouse they just mechanically transfer dimension maps into transformer model.

So, do you have any idea what should be the correct template/approach for BA to capture and document the BI needs?

Rgds,
Seweryng

 

[DoubleD]

Unfortunately your case is the rule rather than the exception. Many BI departments are told by the business, "This is what we need". What should be happening is the following:
Business: "Here's what we currently have and here's what we think we need."
BI: "Ok, let me sit down with some of your group to better understand what you do."
Later,
BI: "Here's what I hear your requirements to be. Here's how I suggest we meet those requirements. Also, here's how I believe you could be utilizing your data, have you thought about things this way?"

The BA should help the business define their base requirements, but it should be more of a "I need to be able to answer this question" type of format. Not, I want a report that looks like this.

Good luck changing your environment, unfortunately I don't have any sound advice regarding how you can do it.

I am what I am based on the decisions I have made.

DoubleD

 

[puppyquestion1]

Hi Seweryng. I agree w/both you and DoubleD.

However, another part of the problem (especially in large organizations), lies in the nature of business intelligence tools and their increasing complexity, and increasingly standardized IT department practices.

Tools like Cognos Impromptu and Powerplay (the EARLY client versions) came about for one simple reason: they allowed non-IT-educated business analysts to answer questions quickly, answers that if the BAs had pursued via their internal IT staff, would have taken months of systems analysis and programming for the IT department to answer.

These simple Impromptu and Powerplay client tools have now morphed into these huge enterprise, web-enabled platforms (witness ReportNet and what it takes to bring that behemoth up). So we're starting to see emerge what was the original problem: BAs now have to rely on IT (and specialized BI techs) to get answer their questions answered. And it's not quickly.

You may ask why?, since you can still purchase the Impromptu and Powerplay clients and ignore IWR, PPES, and ReportNet.

Well, here's one reason: many BAs in large orgs aren't allowed anymore to grow their own data sources, or harvest them from IT department maintained databases. Large IT departments demand that all data reside with them, in enterprise systems and huge standardized datamarts.

So when the odd, ad-hoc question comes in that the organizations' datamarts can't answer, the BA is often fawked because they're not allowed to use the easier BI client tools anymore against small databases.

Basically, I think BI in general has come full circle and the BAs are getting screwed again. (Disclaimer: I'm currently a BI tech, but I've switched so many times from being a BA to BI/IT and vice versa over the last ten years it's sometimes hard for me to distiguish).

I know IT departments have their reasons for using enterprise warehouses and enterprise BI platforms (ie, return on scale, non-fragmentation of data, etc.) but the flexibility a BA is looking for can quickly be lost.

 

[DoubleD]

PuppyQuestion1,
Good points. I also think it depends on the structure of your organization. Seweryng sounds like he's talking about full blown project work; developing data marts and complete BI solutions to support them. The impression I got is that PuppyQuestion1 is talking more about data already being in place and someone needing to figure out how to use it.

I definitely agree with PuppyQuestion1 that the role of the BA and BI are morphing. IMHO, a good BI should be doing the business analysis as well as designing a solution. The BA's job is to help the business define their needs and understand what's possible. I know others would have a different opinion.

I am what I am based on the decisions I have made.

DoubleD

 

[seweryng]

Thanks DoubleD and Puppyquestion1,

Sometimes I think that BI development is just different from ordinary application dev process, so maybe there should be just one person providing end-2-end solution.
Acting at the same time as BA, solution architect and developer?

Rgds,
Seweryng

 

[umag]

Hi Swereyng
From my experience the BI development varies from organization to organization. Depends on the budget the entire BI solution can be implemented by 2or 3 resources or can be done as a group consist of Business Analyst, Systems Analyst, DB Designer, ETL designer/developer, Security architect/admin, Reports Developer with Team Lead. I have worked as a single resource doing all these activites at small client and other place I was doing just a dedicated role of DB designer, ETL developer, Report Developer. So there is no hard and fast rule. But I can say when there is a dedicated BA, his role should a bridge between the technical team and business team letting the technical team understand business requirements and letting the business users understand the feasibility of solution depends on the available data. For business users it is always nice to have whatever they requested but in reality sometimes data may not support it. This is where BA set right expectations for business users. BA is critical in lot of places/projects as setting right expectations plays vital role for the success/failure of the project.

Hope this helps. I welcome comments/criticisms/questions.

Regards
Uma Mahesh