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Take 5
5 ways to rejuvenate your data warehouse
NCR's CIO explains how to meet changing business needs by refocusing your information delivery strategy.
1. Create an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) roadmap.
After dramatic or ongoing business change, prepare to rethink and even refocus the data warehouse. Don’t panic if you feel unsure of the outcome of this process. Creating a roadmap is the first step to ensuring that the EDW meets your current and future business needs. Partnering with a strong data warehousing provider can help you avoid painful false starts and common pitfalls.
2. Forget the technology for now.
Instead, develop a laser focus on business needs. Conduct unbiased, in-depth interviews with business leaders, asking, “What information do you need to support decision making?” Answers to this question will help you better understand your users’ data needs—and how to shape your technology systems to address them.
3. Identify the information delivery gaps.
With a clearer view of your customer requirements, pinpoint where the technology and your processes can be improved. Perhaps a new organizational model has created timeliness gaps, or you’ve identified holes in your geographic data. Once the problems are clear, you can spot opportunities to use data warehousing technology to improve the presentation, completeness and quality of the data you provide to the business.
4. Design with the business, for the business.
Begin designing the user interface months before the go-live date. Take the time to share prototypes of screen shots, dashboard interfaces and reports with the users who participated in the interviews. Be prepared for these validation efforts to yield additional discussions about users’ requirements and how the technology can best meet their needs. Although it may be time-consuming, this phase is essential to refining the data warehousing environment so that it delivers precisely the information needed to support the business.
5. Ready, set, go live—but plan for the future.
Develop a training plan for the new system and make sure business users receive the education they need to utilize it productively. That training should begin at the top of the organization and cascade downward. For example, start with executive dashboard training at the C level first, followed by vice presidents, and so on. Then go live with the new system. Once you are up and running, take time to revalidate your future EDW roadmap. As the business continues to change, the data warehouse will need to evolve, too.
Photography by Tom Rogowski