Business Intelligence - Implementation Challenge

Gartner has done a study about Top Strategic Technology in every year, and for the 2009 and 2010, Business Intelligence has become one of that list. If you want to know, whether you have used this technology in your work or company then this discussion would be answered your question.

Business Intelligence is a generic name which in its implementation and use can be in many forms. Wikipedia defined it as to skills, technologies, applications and practices used to help a business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. It is aimed to help business decision making process more accurate as it has some valid data to support it.

While everyone would like be able to do so, however it its real implementation that is not easy case. Several key challenges that I experienced are :

• The project is treated as technology implementation. The project must have a strong business analyst or data analyst that knows exactly the requirements
• Users have not been discipline from the start in providing the necessary data to make decision. In this case the application will not be able to do anything
• Scope is not defined well and application comes as a tool. This often create a situation where the output is not what the users are expected
• Technology issues such as sizing capacity and the selection of the tools are also need to be prepared carefully

In this discussion - you might want to know what is there in the market for you to used, and Gartner clasification of Business Intelligence Platform could be usefull.

IT Strategic Grid

There are several methods on how you can evaluate where does and IT give the company value added. One of the methods is Strategic Grid Analysis which is developed by McFarlan and McKenney. This method is explained in 'Corporate Information Systems Management : The Issues Facing Senior Executives' (1983).

The strategic grid is useful explains where and how IT investmet has been made. It clasifies IT investment into four categories :

• Strategic : Investment that is critical for future success
• Turnaround : Investment that is strategic importance and be able to provide strategic opportunities
• Factory : Invesment that is required to sustain existing business. This investment aims to improve performance or reduce cost
• Support : Investment that is necessary for improving, but not critical to existing business. Normally this much related to individual performance improvement tools

The clasification helps management to see whether IT investments so far have been aligned to business objectives such as to support business growth, competitiveness or new business venture.

The IT Strategic Grid is normally drawed by 2X2 boxes which in each quadrant the four type of IT investment is listed. This link will give you an illustration of this tools as well as some additional definition.

Software Quality Certification

Improving your software quality will require a lot of dicipline from your programmer in executing the SDLC method that you want to apply. I found many fresh programmers often look software source code management, change management, proper documentation as the burden. These topics also do not have to be a popular subject in the college or university. I discussed with couple of programmers with average about 1.5 years experience, many of them do not know the importance of it. While now a day, solution in software development and testing is already so advance which then will 'force' programmer must follow certain rules however providing the explanation of how importance of running those routines is the key.

In regards to equip programmers, system analysts and business analysts with a structured knowledge, it is worth to have your team member certified in these several subjects. The certification is approved by a body call QAI Global Institute. It has several certifications, several of them are :

1. Certified Associate in Software Quality (CASQ)
2. Certified Associate in Software Testing (CAST)
3. Certified Associate Business Analyst (CABA)
4. Certified Software Business Analyst (CSBA)
5. Certified Software Process Engineer (CSPE)
6. Certified Quantitative Software Process Engineer (CQSPE)

Most of the training is done through web and tested through prometric testing center wordwide. So it is quite flexible and also the cost of training also justify for you who want to have the right source of knowledge in improving software quality.