At twoday kapacity, we help companies that have a fully or partially established Data Warehouse and want to move it to a cloud platform while expanding its functionality. The primary business driver is often the desire to ensure a more agile approach to future changes and expansion of the solution on both the data and user sides. The goal of being more agile is not only achieved by choosing a different technological platform but also requires looking at several other factors.
This post is about the activities that can be advantageously prepared before the actual development of a Cloud Data Warehouse begins. Therefore, it concerns the decisions about processes, roles, and responsibilities that have a significant impact on the project's success, specifically in terms of effective delivery and good collaboration to meet the business needs.
There are some obvious activities involved in a development project - they are listed in the illustration below of the activities before, during, and after a Cloud Data Warehouse project - but here we highlight those that have the most impact on the focus on future agility.
Before the project
Establishment of a model for collecting business requirements and involving the business during the project:
- When transitioning from an older Data Warehouse solution that needs to be renewed and moved to the cloud or a more scattered decentralized solution to a common platform, it is important to establish good practice for involving the business. The decentralized solutions that many companies experience popping up on local servers and in Excel or Power BI desktop solutions usually arise as emergency solutions precisely because there is a mismatch between what and how quickly the business can receive data and analysis and what the BI team is capable of delivering.
- The company's level of ambition in the data field naturally also determines what can and should be invested in resources, but twoday kapacity's experience is that a more flexible collaboration can be achieved, and thus better delivery if you work with your process for collecting business requirements and can align expectations for the ongoing collaboration in a good way.
- Since this collaboration model comes into play throughout a Data Warehouse's lifetime and is the guarantor that the agile adaptation and expansion demanded takes place, it is one of the most important success factors for achieving an agile Data Warehouse platform.
Establishment of target architecture:
- The company's level of ambition in the data area naturally determines what can and should be invested in resources, but twoday kapacity's experience is that a more flexible collaboration and therefore better delivery can be achieved if you work on your process for collecting business requirements and can align expectations for the ongoing collaboration in a good way.
Establishment of project governance:
- Many companies have a fixed model for how they deliver projects in general, which can be used as a starting point when establishing project governance for the development of a data warehouse and analysis and reporting solution. It is important for the result that the business is involved in most of the process, to ensure that what is needed is delivered. The involvement also provides an opportunity for a dialogue about the possibilities with data and technology. This way, it may be possible to ensure a longer lifespan for what is developed from the beginning. In addition to participation in requirements specification and design, it is therefore also important to collaborate continuously during development, participate in testing, and be part of rollout and anchoring after the project, to ensure use and thereby value.
Establishment of design methodology and security concept:
- Just like project governance, it is obvious that structure and methodology are important in data warehouse development, just as in any other IT development discipline. The reason why it is highlighted here is precisely with the goal of using data in an agile setup. A data warehouse platform must be expanded, changed, and adapted continuously, and a stringent methodology, use of components, naming conventions, etc. become extremely important to maintain the speed of maintenance and new development and to ensure delivery to the business is experienced as agile.
- When working with data, security always plays a significant role. Who can see what, and how we need to document this, is quite crucial for how the design is technically formulated. So, this always fills a lot of consideration for future rollback, user-friendliness, and compliance.
During the project
Establishment of DevOps setup:
- Many companies discuss how they want to use DevOps in their IT organization in general, and twoday kapacity also experiences that it is a significant factor in new Cloud Data Warehouse projects. Establishing a good DevOps routine and involving the business in its use helps ensure a good understanding of what is prioritized and delivered, how the work progresses when the business needs to be involved, and when to expect to receive "their dashboard." Thus, the use of a good DevOps setup will support a good involvement of the business, and starting the establishment of a new Data Warehouse is a good opportunity to get this in place.
Knowledge sharing and cloud competency building:
- Knowledge sharing encompasses many different topics – new processes, new concepts, new ways of using data, and perhaps generally greater use of data throughout the organization if the solution is widely adopted. In most new projects, twoday kapacity experiences a great need to communicate and disseminate understanding about both the new solution and the new ways of working.
- Although the design principles are the same for a Cloud Data Warehouse and an on-premise Data Warehouse, there are still several areas where new competencies are required. Even for experienced developers, there may be a learning curve, and it is therefore, important to prepare for this as well.
In this post, the factors that matter for success in most projects have been reviewed, but there may be specific situations or circumstances where other factors may be important for your organization. If you need guidance on what you should have in place alongside the establishment of a Cloud Data Warehouse, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Read more about Data Warehousing here.