Gavroshe USA, Inc.

Profile of Corporate Information Factory (CIF) Practice

Enabling the CIF

Overview

This Practice Area focuses on the entire CIF landscape including Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehousing (DW) – see schematic below (credits to Bill Inmon and Claudia Imhoff). We are specialists in the Methods, Tools and Techniques which support a pragmatic approach to Corporate Information Factory Programs – one which strikes a balance between a long-term Architectural view on the one hand, and the very real need to have quick effective releases of the environment on the other hand.

 

In the never-ending quest to access any information, anywhere, anytime, an architecture is needed that includes data from both internal and external sources in a variety of formats.   It must include operational data, historical data, legacy data, subscription databases, and data from Internet service providers.  It must also include easily accessible metadata.  

Today’s businesses require the ability to access and combine data from a variety of data stores, perform complex data analysis across these data stores, and create multidimensional views of data that represent the business analyst’s perspective of the data.   Furthermore there is a need to summarize, drill down, roll up, slice and dice the information across subject areas and business dimensions.

Information Systems need to support at least three levels of analytical processing in modern organizations:  

Our Approach to BI Planning

Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence environment is not a product, it is an ongoing program. The DW will continue to grow and evolve over time as your business grows and evolves. Normally changes to the DW will be implemented on the basis of controlled quarterly releases.

In order to sustain this amount of recurring change, it is imperative that a "big picture" exists: an overall architecture within which the successive releases can be built, and within which impact of change can be accurately determined. The strategy takes stock of where we are now, compared with where we ultimately will be in the years to come, and specifies what infra-structural changes will be necessary with each successive phase of the DW and BI Environment. The Vendors of Hardware and Software are brought into the loop at this stage and orders are placed.

Several workshops are held to define and agree the path the environment will take, e.g.:

Gavroshe assists the organization to specify its strategy for supporting the DW and BI Programme. This is an essential up-front step in order to ensure that the Programme is sustainable over a long time period, and in order to protect the organization's investment in the Program.

Our Approach to Business Discovery

The focus here is on identifying the "burning questions" which, if answered, would mean decisions could be made which in turn would lead to a major difference to the company's bottom-line. These burning questions fall into 2 major categories: daily operational-type decision support and strategic longer-term decision support based on analysis of trends and patterns. Once the questions have been identified they are prioritized and broken into logical phases for implementation in the warehouse.

Following these initial sessions, data requirements are defined, i.e. the data needed in order to answer the burning questions is specified, and pertinent business definitions and rules ("metadata") are agreed upon. Also sources of the data are listed, and a preliminary list of Data Ownership and Data Stewardship roles are defined and agreed. A plan is drawn up, specifying the steps necessary in order to develop the Data Warehouse as scoped in this work segment and this is included in the Scope Document, which summarizes the major deliverables of this segment.

Several workshop sessions are held:

Gavroshe assists The Organization to scope its DW and BI requirements, and to define the first project. The segment provides The Organization with a clear picture (with buy-in from all parties) of what is required to satisfy its most pressing Operational and Strategic Decision Support requirements.  The major deliverables are Scope Document, Project Plan, Roles and Responsibilities of the Project Team.

Our Approach to DW Design and Construction

The design and construction of the DW includes the Implementation and Roll-out to the first location of the first phase of the DW/BI Environment. Activities include:

Gavroshe assists the organization to implement and roll-out its first phase, addressing the highest priority  "burning questions" as specified in the Business Discovery segment. From this base, the business community can get answers to the key business questions which will make a difference to the company's bottom line.  It also provides the initial platform from which to specify further DW/BI requirements, as more of the staff use the new environment and discover further information needs.
 
Use of the DW will also highlight Data Integrity problems in the Operational Application Systems. These areas can then be given the focused attention necessary to clean and scrub the data in preparation for transfer into the BI environment. This, together with the institution of a Data Stewardship program will ensure that the integrity of the company's Corporate Data Resource is given the attention it deserves.
 
Another outcome of using the DW is normally to highlight areas in the business where processes are operating inefficiently or "bottlenecking". This provides direction for further Business Process Improvement, and also provides a mechanism for measuring the before and after situation related to that particular Business Process, thereby giving a measure of the effectiveness of the Business Process Improvement effort.