There was a great article this week over on the Requirements Network – Data Warehouse / Business Intelligence Requirements Elicitation. Where do You Begin? I really liked the fact that early in the discussion the author said:
After establishing these strategic objectives, make it a priority to get your users talking about their work day, struggles, obstacles, and how they make business decisions as pertains to data (my emphasis).
I think it is essential when working with data to focus on decisions and on how data and analytics might improve those decisions. I also liked the focus on data mining as one of the steps – not just reporting and “soft” analysis tools – though I would add that deploying the results of data mining needs some serious consideration also. In this vein I also wrote about data integration and the importance of keeping the decision in mind.
