Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 576 pages
• Published by: Addison-Wesley Professional March 7, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0201784203
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0201784206
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 2.1 pounds

Book Info
Provides a complete methodology for everything from strategic planning to the selection of new technologies and the evaluation of application releases. A visual guide to developing an effective BI decision-support application. Softcover. CD-ROM included.

Back Cover Copy

"If you are looking for a complete treatment of business intelligence, then go no further than this book. Larissa T. Moss and Shaku Atre have covered all the bases in a cohesive and logical order, making it easy for the reader to follow their line of thought. From early design to ETL to physical database design, the book ties together all the components of business intelligence."
--Bill Inmon, Inmon Enterprises

Business Intelligence Roadmap is a visual guide to developing an effective business intelligence (BI) decision-support application. This book outlines a methodology that takes into account the complexity of developing applications in an integrated BI environment. The authors walk readers through every step of the process--from strategic planning to the selection of new technologies and the evaluation of application releases. The book also serves as a single-source guide to the best practices of BI projects.

Part I steers readers through the six stages of a BI project: justification, planning, business analysis, design, construction, and deployment. Each chapter describes one of sixteen development steps and the major activities, deliverables, roles, and responsibilities. All technical material is clearly expressed in tables, graphs, and diagrams.

Part II provides five matrices that serve as references for the development process charted in Part I. Management tools, such as graphs illustrating the timing and coordination of activities, are included throughout the book. The authors conclude by crystallizing their many years of experience in a list of dos, don'ts, tips, and rules of thumb. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a complete, customizable work breakdown structure.

Both the book and the methodology it describes are designed to adapt to the specific requirements of individual stakeholders and organizations. The book directs business representatives, business sponsors, project managers, and technicians to the chapters that address their distinct responsibilities. The framework of the book allows organizations to begin at any step and enables projects to be scheduled and managed in a variety of ways.

Business Intelligence Roadmap is a clear and comprehensive guide to negotiating the complexities inherent in the development of valuable business intelligence decision-support applications.

0201784203B02112003

Reader Reviews
This book is impressive in its scope! Starting with the business justification of the project, Moss and Atre emphasize requirements, metadata, and extraction/transformation/ and load. In each chapter is a good overview, things to consider, relation to other steps of the plan, and a clear list of deliverables and the personnel (the roles) involved in each of the steps. Each chapter also offers rules of thumb that could only have been come from someone experienced with setting up a Business Intelligence Solution. Perhaps most important to a project manager tempted to cut out a step, is a warning about the risk of omitting the step. Each chapter should NOT be thought of as an in-depth analysis of the topic (for example, there are just 4 pages discussing the star versus the snowflake schema when discussing database design), but rather as a map of the steps that need to be done. I was particularly impressed with the metadata discussions, which emphasize testing of the metadata repository, the role of metadata in navigation and context-sensitive-help at the element level, and the use of multiple sources to generate the metadata. The common emphasis on reviews, involvement of the business sponsors, and testing throughout the process was great! The discussion on three parallel development tracks seemed optimistic, as I was not sure that the application track is completely independent of the Extraction/transformation/load steps until the final implementation step. The book probably also should have emphasized security earlier in the process. This book offers a good plan, and I would be happy if our Business Intelligence projects followed the plan laid out here!! Comment | | (Report this)