Johannesburg, 21 Feb 2006
The data warehouse is a central repository for all the data that a company`s various business systems collect, and is the most powerful tool available to enable organisations to have a single view of their data. However, says Charl Barnard, product manager at Knowledge Integration Dynamics (KID), many data warehouses do not make it through the first iteration or fail to deliver value, simply because they are not subjected to proper governance.
According to Gartner, between 2005 and 2007 more than 50% of data warehouse (DW) projects will have limited acceptance, or will be outright failures. Despite the best efforts of project managers, developers and stakeholders, it is not uncommon for business users to be disappointed at the point of DW project roll-out.
Traditional DW projects usually involve rigorous efforts to collect requirements, design comprehensive architectures and data models, develop and populate repositories, and, ultimately, develop the analytical reports that users want. These projects are complex, involve various stakeholders, can run for at least six months, and can easily cost millions.
To avoid costly DW flops, companies must look to proper DW governance - this is the only way to ensure project success.
DW development projects present a unique set of management challenges that can confound even the most experienced project manager. By embracing the concept of governance organisations will have the ability to identify and manage the risks and pitfalls associated with DW implementation, ensuring that they have the ability to put a successful DW project in place.
In their paper Don`t Just Lead, Govern: Implementing Effective IT Governance, MIT`s Peter Weill and Richard Woodham define IT governance as "specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behaviour in the use of IT". They posit that effective IT governance is one of the ways companies achieve superior returns from their IT investments - by creating IT governance structures that encourage behaviour leading to achieving business performance goals. Effective IT governance requires careful analysis about who makes decisions and how decisions are made in at least four critical domains of IT: principles, infrastructure, architecture, and investment and prioritisation.
In the absence of company-wide governance, DW initiatives stand the greatest risk of collapse. DW governance is a process that must continue to exist for the actual duration of the DW itself - it`s not a one-off process.
Effective DW governance is based on seven critical factors:
1. Hit the ground running - keep the momentum going. Once the DW has been planned, tested and developed, and you are starting to roll it out, good governance will require you to remember that your work is not done - the DW is a continuous project that must evolve with the continuously evolving needs of the business.
2. Business and IT must collaborate - this is a business and not an IT imperative. All business units across the organisation must join forces in the creation of the DW, particularly because its implementation will reach across the company.
3. Ensure you have a powerful executive sponsor - this thing needs board representation. Your executive sponsor must be drawn from the business side of the organisation, and must be someone who can outline the vision behind the project while also ensuring that it takes off quickly and is not subjected to organisational sluggishness.
4. The DW needs a steering committee - one composed of business and IT folk. The executive sponsor cannot assume sole responsibility for the DW project. What is required, in addition, is a steering committee made up of leaders from across the organisation. This committee must focus on the specific business drivers of the DW, aligning it with business goals, gathering end-user input, setting project priorities, measuring return on investment, and generating end-user goodwill and acceptance.
5. Institute powerful change management routines. Requests for change will be inevitable as business users become more aware of the capabilities of the DW; they may even be overwhelming. It is critical that DW architects and developers evaluate each request carefully before simply agreeing to it. Requests for change should go through a formal submission process and be accompanied by a solid business case.
6. Plan for the long term, including budgeting - this is a not a short-term affair. Ensure you have long-term funding for the DW project. Remember that it will grow with the requirements of the business, and can become a vital tool for increasing revue and reducing costs, so that it quickly pays for itself. There is no way that IT can or should fund it all, particularly as it`s not just another technology platform.
7. You can`t manage what you can`t measure, so introduce powerful KPIs. Companies typically measure and project potential return on investment at the beginning phase of a DW project. The right thing to do is to keep these measurement going once the DW is up and running. The best way to secure funding for the DW is, after all, to show results, and the more data is deployed and used within the business, the easier it will become to do this. Keep demonstrating that your DW is a high-value application and it will receive the priority it deserves.
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