Visible Solutions

Critical Success Factors

for Business Intelligence

The Creation of Information

Symmetry

This paper describes critical success factors for developing,

implementing, and managing business intelligence data for
strategic information management.

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
Critical Success Factors (CSF) ..................................................................................................... 1
CSF: Sponsorship and Involvement .......................................................................................... 1
CSF: Business Requirements.................................................................................................... 2
CSF: Enterprise Architecture ..................................................................................................... 3
CSF: Business Intelligence Data Architecture and Design ....................................................................... 4
CSF: Business Intelligence Data Technology ........................................................................................... 9
CSF: Information Quality.......................................................................................................... 12
CSF: Development Environment ............................................................................................. 13
Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 15
business intelligence CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - Visible Systems

Introduction
A business intelligence is more than an archive for corporate data and more than a new
way of accessing corporate information. A business intelligence data is a subject-oriented
repository designed for enterprise-wide information access. It provides tools to satisfy
the information needs of enterprise managers at all organizational levels — not just for
complex data queries, but as a general facility for getting quick, accurate, and often insightful
information. A business intelligence data is designed so that its users can recognize the
information they want and access that information using simple tools.
One of the principal reasons for developing a business intelligence data is to integrate
operational data from various sources into a single and consistent structure that supports
analysis and decision-making within the enterprise. Operational (legacy) systems create,
update and delete production data that "feed" the business intelligence data.
A business intelligence data is analogous to a physical warehouse. Operational systems
create data “parts” that are loaded into the warehouse. Some of those parts are summarized
into information “components” that are stored in the warehouse. business intelligence data
users make requests and are delivered information “products” that are created from the stored
components and parts.
Business intelligence data is typically a blending of technologies, including
relational and multidimensional databases, client/server architecture, extraction/
transformation programs, graphical user interfaces, and more.
Data warehousing is one of the hottest industry trends — for good reason. When well-defined
and properly implemented, business intelligence data can be a valuable competitive tool.
Business intelligence data has its own unique peculiarities and characteristics that make
developing a business intelligence unlike developing just another application. Not every
enterprise is able to successfully develop effective business intelligence -- in fact there are
many more failures than successes.

Critical Success Factors (CSF) The critical success factors for developing
business intelligence data are:
• Sponsorship and Involvement
• Business Requirements
• Enterprise Architecture
• Business Data Architecture and Design
• Data Intelligence Technology
• Information Quality
• Development Environment

CSF: Sponsorship and Involvement

Enterprise executives and managers must support business intelligence development.
Equally important, all potential users must be involved in data governance and engineering.
Without both management sponsorship and near universal involvement, enterprise-wide
business intelligence projects usually fail.

Management
Enterprise management must fully sponsor business intelligence data development
and usage. Sponsorship includes ensuring sufficient resources are available.
Sponsorship also
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means consistent commitment to implementing a business intelligence data

repository that is the single source for corporate measurement and decision support
data.
business intelligence data development and usage often requires significant culture
change. This cannot happen without management commitment - managing
internal change, particularly culture change.
Management Commitment: In order for anything to happen in an enterprise,
including change, executives and managers must be consistently committed to
making it happen. Only enterprise leaders can ensure that resources necessary
to effect the change are available. Consistent commitment means that the
change becomes both an enterprise strategy and an enterprise goal that leaders
continuously and obviously support. The visibility of leadership support is a
primary factor in achieving universal approval for change.
Universal Approval: Change is successful only when the people involved
approve of the change. They understand the need for the change. They believe
the change is good for the enterprise and good for them. They agree that the
change being undertaken is the right change. Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth
Discipline, describes the need for universal approval in order to implement
systemic change: “People want change, they don’t want to be changed.”
Measures and Rewards: Getting everyone to want change is difficult. It
requires a level and degree of communication and cooperation not found in most
enterprises. Maintaining universal approval is even more difficult. The best way
to achieve and maintain universal approval is to ensure that the process and
results of change are measured appropriately and accurately and communicated
enterprise-wide. Good results and changed behavior must be rewarded. At the
same time, unchanged behavior and poor results should not be rewarded.
Employees will not work toward change if they continue to be rewarded for old
practices.

Potential Users
All potential users of the business intelligence, even executives, from every
organizational unit and level, must be actively involved in business intelligence data
design, development, and management. Data users will have the most influence on
acceptance of the warehouse, so it is imperative that their needs are addressed.
They are also the "owners" and "stewards" of operational data and thus are the
best source for subject matter expertise.

CSF: Business Requirements

A business intelligence initiative without first determining strategic business requirements is a
sure recipe for failure. The best source for these requirements is the enterprise strategic
plan and the performance measures identified in the plan. These become the basis for the
enterprise architecture as well as the data architecture and design (other critical success factors
described later in this paper). An enterprise should never undertake system development
efforts, particularly engineering data, without first determining its strategic business and
information requirements.

Strategic Plan
A strategic plan outlines an enterprise’s mission and purpose, goals, strategies and
performance measures (business requirements). Properly used, a strategic plan is the
tool with which effective managers guide their organizations and ensure corporate
success.

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An enterprise’s strategic plan not only provides a guide for effective management; it also
provides the guiding force for internal change and the guidelines for responding to
external change. Through the strategic planning process, the enterprise defines and
documents its purpose, goals, and objectives, along with strategies for achieving them.
Included in the process is an assessment of external opportunities and threats as well as
an assessment of internal strengths and weaknesses.
The most useful strategic plans are multi-dimensional, incorporating the enterprise’s
overall plan with the subordinate plans of every enterprise element, and including
performance measures for every critical outcome.

Performance Measures
Establishing the right performance measures is the key to successful enterprise
management. An enterprise must be able to tell whether progress is being made on its
critical goals and whether stakeholder expectations are being met.
The most effective and useful performance measures are cross-functional and are linked to
the appropriate strategies, objectives, and performance criteria. Management's targets and
thresholds for the measures, often based upon external benchmarks, form the structure for
an enterprise performance measurement system.
Performance measurement documentation should include not only the content of reports
and queries, but also document the path of the data from source to ultimate information
recipient. The combination of all the reports of all the performance measures becomes the
basis for a Strategic Information System that is truly tailored to the enterprise's
requirements.
Executives and managers use the information produced from the business data to
reinforce initiatives, reward behavior and change strategies. Employees use it to
adjust operations and respond to strategic needs. Linking timely accurate measures to
specific goals and objectives begins to make enterprise management more of a science
and less of an art.

CSF: Enterprise Architecture

Linking the enterprise business architecture (EBA) (strategic plans, goals, objectives,
measures) with its enterprise information architecture (EIA), enterprise service component
architecture (ESA) and enterprise technical architecture (ETA) results in enterprise
architecture. This architecture is a logical organization of corporate information requirements,
descriptions of application systems that support the enterprise’s strategic requirements. It
includes the relationships between application systems via shared software components and
shared data elements. The enterprise information architecture also establishes guidelines,
standards, and operational services that define the enterprise’s computing technology
environment.
Before an enterprise can define, design, and implement the architecture for its
strategic information management systems, including business intelligence data, data mart,
decision support, and executive information systems, it must first document the environment in
which these systems will be implemented.

Enterprise Information Architecture

The EIA is a fully normalized data model that describes all the data and information
necessary to the enterprise. It includes relationships between "business data objects,"
business rules concerning usage of the data elements, and identification of the "owner"
of the data. In addition, it is important for the model to indicate the circumstances (who,
when, where, how) for creating, updating, using, and deleting enterprise data. For ease

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of use, subsets of the enterprise data architecture model should be established. These
subsets, or views, can represent functions, organizations, regions, systems, and any
other significant grouping of information.

Enterprise Service Component Architecture

The ESA documents all the information systems in use by the enterprise to create, read,
update, and delete enterprise data. In order to be useful, the information systems should
be linked to appropriate data elements in the Enterprise Information Architecture. Every
system should also be linked to appropriate elements of the enterprise technology
architecture.

Enterprise Technical Architecture

This third segment of the Enterprise Architecture documents the enterprise's hardware
platforms, operating systems, and telecommunications infrastructure. The ETA is also
where guidelines, standards, and operational services that define the enterprise’s
systems development environment are documented.
More detail concerning "Enterprise Architecture Engineering" can be found in the authors’ White
Paper with that title.

CSF: Business Intelligence Architecture and Design

The key to success in scaleable business intelligence data and the single factor that
contributes most to success is an enterprise’s business intelligence data should reflect the
performance measurement and business requirements of the enterprise. Its data
model, structure,

BLUE PRINT - BUSINESS Inelligence

"Engineering" business intelligence data is like engineering a physical warehouse. Both
involve a rigorous development cycle and require the right tools.
A building is constructed using architectural diagrams (blueprints) that clearly depict the
building's infrastructure (structural elements, walls, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc.). The best
data warehouses are built from architectural models of enterprise infrastructure (policies, goals,
measures, critical success factors, etc.).
Blueprints are also used to enlarge a building or make any significant modifications. Without a
diagram of the infrastructure, such changes are quite difficult and very costly and can even be
dangerous. It is the same with data warehouses. First update the enterprise's business
intelligence data architecture model so that it reflects changes (e.g., new performance
measures, product lines, or services) and then modify the business intelligence data to support
the changed enterprise.
Business intelligence data engineering is easier and less costly when based upon
an accurate architectural model of the enterprise. Furthermore, business intelligence
data is easier to use and consistently produces desired outcomes when decision-makers
have access to an enterprise architecture (metadata) that accurately reflects enterprise
infrastructure.
components, and metadata should all be based upon internal information requirements -- not
specific technologies.

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Business Intelligence Data Model

A data model documents the data elements whose values at any point in time
are necessary to tell business intelligence users how well their enterprise is performing.
The business intelligence data model provides a clear and unambiguous definition of
every key data entity, describing the way each is used, as well as defining derivation
formulas, aggregation categories, and refreshment time periods. The business
intelligence data model, linked with the enterprise information architecture, becomes
both requirement documentation and a source for communicating the contents of
the business intelligence data to its users and developers. Issues that must be
addressed in the data model include what legacy data will be used to populate the
business intelligence data, how data will be moved from legacy environments to
the business intelligence database, and how the legacy data will be integrated or
transformed to ensure data quality and integrity in the business intelligence data. The
two most important issues for any business intelligence are data quality and data
access.

Business Intelligence Metadata

Metadata, or data about data, is the nerve center of business intelligence. Metadata
is essential to all levels of the business intelligence but exists and functions in a
different dimension from other warehouse data. Metadata used to manage and
control business intelligence data creation and maintenance resides outside the
business intelligence, often in a digital repository. Metadata is like a "card catalog" to
the subjects contained in the business intelligence.
Structural metadata is used for creation and maintenance of the
business intelligence. It fully describes business intelligence data structure and
content. The basic building block of structural metadata is the data model that
describes its data entities, their characteristics, and how they are related to
one another. The way potential business intelligence users currently use,
or intend to use, enterprise measures provides insight into how to best
serve them from the business intelligence data; i.e., what data entities to include
and how to aggregate detailed data entities. The data model provides a
means of documenting and identifying structural metadata. This includes both
strategic and operational uses of enterprise measures, as well as multi-
dimensional summarization. Structural metadata also includes performance
metrics for programs and queries so that users and developers know how
long programs and queries should run.
Access metadata is the dynamic link between the data and end-user
applications. It generally contains the enterprise measures supported by the
business intelligence data and a dictionary of standard terms including
user-defined custom names and aliases. Access metadata also includes
the location and description of business intelligence data servers,
databases, tables, detailed data, and summaries along with descriptions of
original data sources and transformations. Access metadata provides rules
for drill up, drill down and views across enterprise dimensions and
subject hierarchies like products, markets, and customers. Access
metadata also allows rules for user-defined custom calculations and
queries to be included. In addition, access metadata contains individual, work
group, and enterprise security for viewing, changing, and distributing
custom calculations, summaries, or other analyses.

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Business Intelligence Components

The business intelligence data architecture also contains descriptions and
components: current detail, summarized data, and archives as well as systems
of record and integration/transformation programs.

Business
Intelligence
Summarized
Components Summarized
Data Data

business intelligence data

Architecture
(Metadata)
M/D Current
Detail

Integration/
Operational Transformation
Systems of Programs Archives
Record
M/D

The heart of a business intelligence data is its current detail. It is the place
where the bulk of data resides. Current detail comes directly from operational
systems and may be stored as raw data or as an aggregation of raw data.
Current detail, organized by subject area, represents the entire enterprise,
rather than a given application. Current detail is the lowest level of data
granularity in business intelligence data. Every data entity in current detail
is a snapshot, at a moment in time, representing the instance when the data
are accurate. Current detail is typically maintained for two to five years, but
some enterprises may require detail data for significantly longer periods.
When initially implemented, business intelligence data may include current
detail more than two years old, but the often questionable quality of older
data must be considered and measures taken to ensure its validity. Current
detail refreshment occurs as frequently as necessary to support enterprise
requirements.
Lightly summarized data are the hallmark of a business intelligence data. All
enterprise elements (department, region, function, etc.) do not have the same
information requirements, so effective business intelligence data design
provides for customized, lightly summarized data for every enterprise element
(see Data Mart, below). An enterprise element may have access to both
detailed and summarized data, but typically much less than the total stored in
current detail.
Highly summarized data are primarily for enterprise executives.
Highly summarized data can come from either the lightly summarized data
used by enterprise elements or from current detail. Data volume at this level is
much less than other levels and represents an eclectic collection supporting a
wide variety of needs and interests. In addition to access to highly
summarized data, executives also should have the capability of accessing
increasing levels of detail through a "drill down" process.
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Business intelligence archives contain old data (normally over two years
old) of significant, continuing interest and value to the enterprise. There is
usually a massive amount of data stored in the business intelligence data
archives that has a low incidence of access. Archive data are most often used
for forecasting and trend analysis. Although archive data may be stored with
the same level of granularity as current detail, it is more likely that archive
data are aggregated as they are archived. Archives include not only old data
(in raw or summarized form); they also include the metadata that describes the
old data's characteristics.
A system of record is the source of the best or "rightest" data that feeds
business intelligence data. The "rightest" data are those which are most
timely, complete, accurate, and have the best structural conformance to
the business intelligence data. Often the "rightest" data are closest to the
source of entry into the production environment. In other cases, a system of
record may be one containing already summarized data. Often, “rightest” data
is created from diverse sources through a reconciliation process.
Business Intelligence Data Structure
Business intelligence data may have any of several structures. The basic data
structures are:

Physical Data - physical database in which all the data for the business
intelligence data are stored, along with metadata and processing logic for
scrubbing, organizing, packaging and processing the detail data.
Logical Warehouse - also contains metadata including enterprise rules and
processing logic for scrubbing, organizing, packaging and processing the
data, but does not contain actual data. Instead it contains the information
necessary to access the data wherever they reside. This structure is possible
only when operational systems exactly reflect the enterprise data architecture
and system capacities can support both operational and management functions.
Data Mart - subset of an enterprise-wide business intelligence data. Typically
it supports an enterprise element (department, region, function, etc.). The
organization of data in a data mart reflects the needs of the enterprise element
it supports, and may be different from the organization of the enterprise
business intelligence data. Specific data elements may be stored redundantly
in both the data mart and the business intelligence data. As part of an iterative
development process, an enterprise builds a series of physical data marts over
time and links them via an enterprise-wide logical business intelligence data or
feeds them from a single database.
Both within the Data Warehouse as a whole and within the individual Data
Marts, different groups of users have needs for differing slices of data. For
example, users at a branch generally need the “horizontal slice” of data that
pertains to their branch (i.e. they need all the data elements - tables and
columns - but only the rows pertaining to their branch). Other users need
“vertical slices” or a combination of horizontal and vertical slices.
The general approach is to try to make data that are needed by a user group
available on a machine that is as close to the users as is feasible -- a Data
Mart server. Only that slice of data that is regularly used by the user group
should be on their Data Mart server. All other data accessible to the user group
should be available on other machines in the network when needed.
The major issues to be addressed in implementing a particular business intelligence
data structure involve data distribution and data replication. How much data? How
often? Detail or

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summarized? Uni-directional or bi-directional update? Data distribution and replication

decisions will also have application implications.
Distribution refers to the parceling out of segments of the data to distinct multiple
independent computers (or clusters). Replication refers to the copying of portions of the
data in one (or more) databases to a second database (often on a different computer)
and guaranteeing that whenever the data is changed that all the replicas implement the
change in order to stay in synchronization.
The challenges of distribution and replication are not only exist in developing the initial
design, but also the ongoing management and maintenance of the overall system.
business intelligence data architecture design must take into account the following:
Replication: An effective design must consider
• From what database and to what servers is the data moving? Is the data
moved one-way or bi-directionally?
• How many replicas will be needed and are they all identical?
• By operational application, how much data - whole databases or selected
sets of fields - will be moved throughout the network?
• By application, how time sensitive is the data?
• How is data delivery guaranteed? Who is responsible for the guarantee?
• What should be done if the data to be replicated cannot be delivered due to
temporary problems?
• How is data replication tracked?
Network: The network issues that revolve around distribution and replication
include
• What are the physical characteristics of the network architecture that
connects the data sources to the replicas? Can its bandwidth handle the
amount to data to be transferred?
• What is the overall processing speed of each component of the network?
How fast can data effectively move between each node?
• What type of replication process will be implemented (synchronous or
asynchronous)? Will it require 100% availability of the network? How is the
replication process affected if the network is temporarily down? How will
failed replication attempts be managed?
Business Intelligence Application(s): Applications must be designed to be
aware of the replicas available.
• Each application at each site must know where to find the data (preferred
site)
• If the data is not available at the preferred site, how does the application
detect the problem?
• Should the application have the ability to switch to an alternate site from
which to retrieve the data?
Scheduling: Efficient scheduling of replication must consider
• What events or conditions will trigger a dynamic data transfer? How much
data is transferred during a triggered data move?
• How long will it take to perform the data transfer under various conditions?
Can the required time be minimized through better scheduling

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• What time zones play an important consideration when moving data?

Change Management: Replication is not a static concept. Ongoing changes
must be anticipated in the overall replication strategy.
• What technological changes could impact the operation or performance of
the current replication strategy? What investments will improve the strategic
business impact of the data?
• What organizational, product, service, regulatory, market, competitive, or
other environmental changes could impact the operation or performance of
the present replication strategy?
• Does the replication strategy fit today’s users’ needs?
Distribution and replication of business intelligence data is primarily a physical
architecture design and implementation issue.

CSF: Business Intelligence Technology

Only after the data warehouse architecture has been defined should an enterprise
begin selecting and implementing its business intelligence data technology. Otherwise, there is
a high probability that the technology will not support enterprise requirements. Further, if
the enterprise business intelligence data solution is designed for a specific technology it will
be difficult, if not impossible, to change technologies as requirements change and as
technologies improve and mature. There are more and more technologies available to support
enterprise data warehousing. They can be conveniently grouped into user interfaces,
warehouse engines, hardware platforms, system software, and security.

User Interface(s)
Business Intelligence users get useful information from by aggregating data across
multiple data sources via user interfaces. It is these user interfaces that have the
most impact on how effective and useful the data will be perceived. Therefore,
users must be actively involved in selecting their own interface. Two primary criteria
for selecting an effective user interface are ease of use and performance. For ease
of use, most enterprises turn to graphical user interfaces. For performance,
developers must ensure that the hardware/software platform fully supports and is
optimized for every chosen user interface. The most important selection criteria for
user interfaces are the information needs and the level of computer literacy of potential
users who will retrieve the information they need from the data sources. User categories
are based on levels of literacy and information needs:
Information Systems Challenged - users who are totally uninvolved with
information systems. In management roles they rely on their secretaries or
assistants to retrieve information for them. These users need an extremely
easy to use and highly graphical interface or standard queries and reports
with a limited number of parameters.
Variance Oriented - users who are focused on the variances in numbers over
time. These users mainly want a set of standard reports that they can generate
or receive periodically so that they can perform their analyses.
Number Crunchers - users who are spreadsheet aficionados. They will take
whatever data are available and refine it, re-categorize it and derive their own
numbers for analyzing and managing the enterprise. Their needs can best be
met by providing a spreadsheet extract output format for any reports or ad hoc
queries provided.

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Technically Oriented - users who are either already familiar with computers or
have sufficient motivation to learn and use everything they can get their hands
on. These people want to have complete control over the way they retrieve and
format information. They are often business or systems analysts who
have moved into an enterprise function. They want to have all of the tools
the business intelligence development staff uses.
Most enterprises have all of these categories of individuals. This makes it advisable
to provide each type of user interface.
The final user interface criterion is that it supports the access metadata designed for the
business intelligence. If a user interface is easy to use, allows all potential users to
get the information they need in the format they need, and does it in an acceptable
amount of time, it is the right interface.

Business Intelligence Engine(s)

Once the information requirements and metadata have been identified and
documented, user interfaces have been designed, and the data structure has been
selected, a process that will support the business intelligence data and all access
approaches should be selected. Key issues include capability for loading information,
implementing access control (security) mechanisms and support for one or more
user interface tool sets. The architecture, performance requirements, and overall
size of thedata will determine software requirements. For example, a business
intelligence data that includes data marts will require not only relational
technology, but also multidimensional access and support a cloud-based
architecture. See table 1.

Feature/Function Multi- Multi-

Relational Super- Dimension Dimension Object-
Relational (logical) (physical) Relational

Normalized structures 9 9 9

Abstract data types 9

Parallelism 9

Multi-dimensional 9 9 9
structures

Drill-down 9 9 9

Rotation 9 9 9

Data-dependent 9
operations

Table 1 - Database Management System Criteria

Hardware Platform(s)
The selection of one or more hardware platforms involves answering the following
questions: How much data is needed to enable business intelligence and how much can
the platform economically accommodate? How scaleable is the platform? Is it
optimized for data
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warehouse performance? Will the platform support the software selected for the
business intelligence data? How many users will simultaneously access the business
intelligence data? Will their queries be simple or complex? These are the most
important criteria for selecting hardware to support business intelligence. In
answering these questions it is important to consider all hardware platform
characteristics; not just CPU speed and disk capacity, but memory capacity and the
input/output system capabilities as well. I/O capacity is often the most critical to overall
business intelligence performance. While increasing the number of servers can usually
increase memory and CPU capacity, increasing I/O capacity is not as simple.
Nevertheless, it is vital that the hardware platform(s) supporting business
intelligence have sufficient capacity. This often requires multiple, independent I/
O channels or busses.
Business Intelligence data capacity planning is not an exact science. Underestimating
is the rule rather than the exception. Some experts advise doubling initial estimates
of hardware requirements because users and query complexity increases
exponentially over the first few months after initial business intelligence data
implementation. Even with sufficient initial capacity, it is critical to choose
scaleable systems to support inevitable but hard-to-quantify future growth.

LAN

SMP

Terabytes

Cluster

MPP

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Despite the many vagaries of data warehousing and the relative youth of the field, early
adopters and vendors agree on a few general rules when estimating server capacity.
Small databases, simple queries -- LAN (local area network) servers, with a
single I/O bus are appropriate for data marts where the database is under 5GB.
Medium to large databases, more complex queries -- Response time is faster
on SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) systems than it is on uniprocessors, and
they tend to be more cost effective the systems where nothing is shared. Large
amounts of memory reduce outside seek time during queries, speeding
performance when querying large databases. Conventional wisdom suggests
that SMP machines begin to exceed capacity between 500GB and the low
terabyte range. Good performance for a medium-sized database also requires at
least two I/O channels. As the size of the database and complexity of queries
grows, more I/O channels are needed to maintain performance.
Very large databases, very complex queries -- very large data warehouses
(up to 5 terabytes) require clusters of SMP servers or MPP (massively parallel
processor) servers. The platforms with the best performance for very large

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databases, excluding MPP’s tend to be the ones with a large number of I/O
channels.
Huge databases, extremely complex queries -- data warehouses that exceed
10 terabytes may need the processing power and I/O channels provided by
mainframe systems.

For these environments… Choose…

Requirements Users Support Architecture Server DBMS

Departmental; Small; single Minimal local; Consolidated; Single MDDB
data analysis location average central turnkey package processor or
SMP
Departmental; Large; analysts Minimal local; Tiered; detail Cluster SMP RDBMS
analysis plus at single average central central; summary central; SP or central;
informational location; local SMP local MDDB
dispersed local
informational
users
Enterprise; Large; Strong central Centralized Clustered SMP Object-
analysis plus geographically relational
informational dispersed ; Web
support
Departmental; Small; few sites Strong central Centralized MPP RDBMS
exploratory with
parallel
support

Table 2 - System Selection Criteria

System Software
Concurrent with hardware selection is the selection of system software to support the
business intelligence data. The operating systems must support the selected user
interfaces, business intelligence data structure and warehouse engine.

Security
Business Intelligence data security includes both user access security and physical
data security. Business Intelligence is a read-only source of enterprise information;
therefore developers need not be concerned with controlling create, update and
delete capabilities through access security. But, developers do need to address the
trade off between protecting a valuable corporate asset against unauthorized access
and making the data accessible to anyone within the enterprise who can put it to good
use. The best solution is to allow everyone in the enterprise to have access to the
enterprise measure definitions and derivations, but only allow access to the underlying
detailed data on an approved, need-to-know basis. Developers also need to provide
sufficient data security, through backup, off-site storage, replication, fault-tolerant and/or
redundant hardware, etc., to protect the data from loss due to power failures, equipment
malfunction, sabotage, and so on.

CSF: Information Quality

The single most important success factor for data warehousing is the quality of
information provided to users. Data in the data warehouse must be of the highest possible

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quality. It must be accurate, relevant, complete, and concise. It must be timely and current. It
must be presented in a way that is clear and understandable. Business Intelligence
containing trusted, strategic information, becomes a valuable enterprise resource for decision
makers at all organizational levels. If it's users discover that it contains bad data, the data will
be ignored and will fail. Worse, if it contains bad data, but its users never find out and
make decisions based upon the data, it is possible that the enterprise will fail.

Operational Data Quality

The source data that feeds the business intelligence data should be of equal quality.
This can be accomplished through practices such as rigorous edits and enforcing a
single point of entry for any data element.

Extract, Transform & Load

When source data is questionable or is in many disparate sources, an ETL
process may have to be designed to ensure business intelligence data
information quality. The components that link operational systems with the data
are the integration/transformation programs. Even the "rightest"
operational data cannot usually be copied, as is, into the data. Raw
operational data are virtually unintelligible to most end users. Additionally,
operational data seldom conform to the logical, subject-oriented structure of
the data. Further, different operational systems represent data differently,
use different codes for the same thing, squeeze multiple pieces of information
into one field, and more. Operational data can also come from many
different physical sources: old mainframe files, non-relational databases,
indexed flat files, even proprietary tape and card-based systems. Thus
operational data must be cleaned up, edited, and reformatted before being
loaded. As operational data items pass from their systems of record to
transformation programs convert them from application-specific data
into enterprise data. These integration and transformation programs
perform functions such as:

• Reformatting, recalculating, or modifying key structures and other data

elements.
• Adding time elements
• Identifying default values
• Supplying logic to choose between multiple data sources
• Summarizing, tallying, and merging data from multiple sources
• Reconciling data from multiple sources
When the operational environments change, integration and transformation
programs must be modified to reflect that change.

CSF: Development Environment

The most ignored critical success factor is the one that can have the greatest impact. In order to
consistently design, develop, and implement business intelligence, an enterprise must have
a development environment that uses best practices and techniques. The elements of
this environment include project teams, methodology, and tools.

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business intelligence data CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - Visible Systems

Business Intelligence Project Team(s)

In addition to consistent management commitment and sponsorship and user
involvement, there is another critical enterprise culture element. The teams that will be
actually designing, developing, implementing, and managing the enterprise data
must have certain characteristics. They must understand the importance of strategic
information. They must be able to analyze and document business
requirements in business language. They must be dedicated to the data project.
They must have sufficient resources. They must practice effective project
management. Every team member must have appropriate skills, knowledge and
experience (see below), be sufficiently familiar with the enterprise development
methodology, and be able to effectively use the engineering tool set.

Development Methodology
Enterprises that consistently produce quality information systems rigorously use a full
life cycle development methodology. Such a methodology is characterized by a
sequence of interrelated steps beginning with determining business requirements and
resulting in system design, development, and implementation. The Software
Engineering Institute, which established the industry-standard, software development
capability maturity model (CMM), declares that a methodology is an absolute necessity
in order to be an effective software developer.
Having a strategically-driven, customer-focused, information-centric, model-
based, disciplined, rigorous, and repeatable methodology is absolutely essential for
successful business intelligence data engineering.

Development Tools
Business Intelligence data is too complex and too massive to be developed using
manual methods. Development tools such as modeling tools, repositories and
fourth/fifth generation programming languages are useful for business intelligence
data engineering. In addition, there are several Executive Information System
(EIS) and Decision Support System (DSS) tools that can help with business
intelligence data access. There are also many special purpose business
intelligence data tools including middleware and data integration/
transformation tools.
Some combination of these tools is necessary to quickly and effectively develop and
maintain business intelligence data. The specific tool set will an enterprise uses will
depend upon its data warehousing needs. No matter what tools are used, it is
important that the tools work together and that they can be used within the enterprise’s
chosen technology environment.

Skills and Knowledge

A specialized set of skills and knowledge is required to efficiently develop
business intelligence data. They include experience with online analytical processing
(OLAP) tools and systems integration; strong technical background with emphasis on
operating systems, data bases, decision support tools, user interfaces and client-
server; high conceptual level of relational theory; strong communication (speaking
and writing) skills; and the ability to interact with everyone in an organization from
office workers to the CEO. The necessary skills and knowledge may be acquired by
hiring experienced consultants, or by training internal staff. The most effective
approach is for consultants to begin development while helping internal staff
become skilled so that the enterprise eventually becomes self-sufficient.

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business intelligence data CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - Visible Systems

Summary
Business Intelligence data engineering is not like normal application development. Its scope is
broader, its visibility is greater, its user community is larger, and it is more prone to failure.
Before beginning a business intelligence data project, an enterprise should evaluate
whether it has adequately addressed the critical success factors for business intelligence data
engineering.

Sponsorship & Involvement

Management
Potential Users
Business Requirements
Strategic Plan
Performance Measures
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Information
Information Systems
Enterprise Technology
Business Intelligence Data Architecture and Design
Data Model
Metadata
Components
Structure
Data Warehouse Technology
User Interface(s)
Warehouse Engine(s)
Hardware Platform(s)s
System Software
Security
Information Quality
Operational Data Quality
Extract, Transform & Load

Development Environment
Project Teams
Methodology
Development Tools
Skills & Knowledge

Addressing the Critical Success Factors for business intelligence data engineering will
help you deliver effective strategic information that exactly meets the needs of your
enterprise -- public or private, large or small -- to the right people, in the right place, at the
right time, in the right format.

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business intelligence data CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - Visible Systems

For more information please contact:

Visible Systems Corporation
711 Atlantic Avenue
Boston, MA
[email protected]

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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DATA - CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - ALAN PERKINS

Alan Perkins has been a Systems Analyst on the White House staff, Director of the US Army
Data Processing School in Germany, Vice President of R&D for a virtual corporation, Vice
President of Consulting for Visible Systems Corporation and General Manager of a high-tech
consulting firm. He has provided information and enterpris e management consulting to numerous
companies, associations and government agencies.

Mr. Perkins specializes in Enterprise Architecture Engineering. He helps clients quickly engineer
enterprise architectures that are actionable and adaptable. His approach res ults in architectures
that enable and facilitate enterprise initiatives such as Corporate Port als, Enterprise Data
Warehouses, Enterprise Application Integration, Soft ware Component Engineering, etc.

The following are papers are available at www.visiblesystemscorp.com:

"Enterpri se Archi tecture Engineering"
"Enterpri se Archi tecture Engineering Critical Succe ss Factors"
"High-Performance Enterpri se Architecture Engineering – Implementing the Zachman
Framework for Enterpri se Archi tecture"
"Enterpri se Change Management – An Architected Approach"
"Getting Your Acts Together – An Architected Solution for Government Transformation" "A
Strategic Approach to business intelligence data Engineering"
"Business Intelligence Data Architecture – A Blueprint For Success"
"Critical Succe ss Factors for Business Intelligence Data Engineering"
"How to Succeed in the 21st Century – Critical Information Management Success Factors"
"XML Metadata Management – Controlling XML Chaos"
"Busine ss Rule s A re Meta-Data"
”Enterpri se System Modernization – Solving IT’s Bigge st Problem”
"Strategic Enterpri se Application Integration"
"e-Engineering – A Unified Method"
"Enterpri se Portal Engineering"
"Quality Software [Component] Engineering"
"Software Engineering Process Improvement"

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