1. Warehouse Implementation Lifecycle Project planning
January 9, 2003
Warehouse Implementation Lifecycle
Project planning
Business requirements definition
Case study - Introduce Dimensional Modeling
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

2. Warehouse Implementation Lifecycle
High level plan
Iterative
Business
Requirements
Definition
Technical
Architecture
Design
Product
selection &
Installation
Project
planning
Deployment
Maintenance
Dimensional
Modeling
Physical
Design
Data Staging
Design &
Development
End-user
Application
Specification
End-user
Application
Development
Project Management
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

3. Strong business management sponsor Compelling business motivation
Project Planning
Readiness factors:
Strong business management sponsor
Compelling business motivation
IS/Business partnership
Current analytic culture
Feasibility
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

4. Business systems analyst Data modeler Data warehouse DBA
Project Planning
Core Project Team
Business systems analyst
Data modeler
Data warehouse DBA
Data staging system designer
…text mentions more
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

5. Business systems analyst
Project Planning
Business systems analyst
Leads the business requirements definition activities
Qualities: user-centric, knowledgeable about the business
Data modeler
Does detailed data analysis
Develops the dimensional model
Qualities: strong data modeling skills
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

6. Translates the dimensional model into physical table structures
Project Planning
Data warehouse DBA
Translates the dimensional model into physical table structures
Responsible for the day-to-day operations of the warehouse
Data staging system designer
Responsible for end-to-end design of ETL
End user application developers
Creates, maintains end user applications
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

7. Business Requirements Definition
Need to understand workers’ analytic requirements
What are the decisions they need to make?
What data do they need to make those decisions?
What are the source systems?
Techniques: (text mentions two)
Interviews
Facilitated sessions
One person leads the discussions of a group
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

8. Business Requirements Definition
Sample outcome on page 131
“Sales Performance Analysis
“Business users want to leverage existing sales order information to better understand customer, product, and sales channel performance. They need to see the impact of pricing changes or promotional trade offerings on sales volumes and sales mix by product or product grouping. Users currently receive summary monthly sales performance reports, but are unable to drill into the detail information. They also need to see sales trends over time, rather than just viewing a single month’s activity compared to last year. … may be unaware of customer opportunities and problem situations. …
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

9. Business Requirements Definition
Sales Performance Analysis …
“Typical analytic questions that could be answered with access to more timely sales order information include:
How much volume have we done with a specific customer or group of customers over the past 6 months?
Has my customer participated yet in a promotion which ends in two weeks?
What is the sales mix by market and customer? Is there an opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell? Has that mix changed over the past 12 months?
How does the sales mix for a given store compare with similar stores in the chain?
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

10. Business Requirements Definition
Example (handed out in class)
From: The official guide to Informix/Red Brick Data Warehousing; Robert J. Hocutt
The business problems:
Local-Tel has difficulty understanding who their customers are, why they are happy, and why they leave.
Local-Tel has a difficult time tracking how much revenue its business generates, making product comparisons, observing customer usage patterns, and understanding how, why, and how often its customers churn.
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen

11. Introduction to Dimensional Modeling
Retail case study - Handed out in class.
Management wants to better understand customer purchases as captured by the POS system.
Need to provide for analysis of sales data
Jan 2003
Ron McFadyen