Chapter Sixteen. Step 16: Release Evaluation

Chapter Overview

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Things to consider about release evaluation

• Guidelines for using the application release concept when developing BI applications

• How to organize a post-implementation review meeting, including when and where to schedule the session, who to invite, and what to discuss

• The process flow of a post-implementation review session, including responsibilities for conducting the meeting

• Brief descriptions of the activities involved in release evaluation, the deliverables resulting from those activities, and the roles involved

• The risks of not performing Step 16

Things to Consider

Post-Implementation Review

How soon after the rollout should we schedule a formal project review?

Should the business sponsor or the project manager run the review session? Or should we ask a trained facilitator who was not involved with the BI project to facilitate the review session?

Who should attend the review session?

Should it be held offsite? Where?

Who will prepare and distribute the agenda?

What topics should appear on the agenda?

Who will be responsible for taking notes?

Will we invite stakeholders from other departments?

Will we invite the data owners ?

Who will track the assigned action items? The project manager?

How will we communicate to other teams and stakeholders the lessons we learned from the review? Who else can benefit from this review?

Measures of Success

Is the business sponsor satisfied with the BI application?

Do the business people like the BI application? Is it easy to use?

What do they like? What do they dislike? Why?

Are they using the meta data repository? Do they find it helpful?

Is the business sponsor willing to support another BI application?

Plans for the Next Release

Do we have leftover requirements that did not get implemented due to time constraints or other project constraints?

Do we know how we want to address these requirements? Will they go into the next release? Will they be reprioritized?

Are we planning another release of this BI application for the same business area?

Are we switching to a different department and a different business sponsor?

Do we want to invite the new business sponsor to the review session as one of the stakeholders?

Are we prepared to split the core team into two groups the next time so we can work on two BI projects at the same time?

Who will continue with the next release of this BI application?

Who will lead the new BI project for the new business sponsor?

Building a BI decision-support environment is a never-ending process. Unlike most operational systems, which have sharply defined functionalities, BI applications must evolve to handle emerging information needs. As the needs and goals of your organization change, so must the BI decision-support environment. There is no practical way to anticipate all possible questions in the initial design of the BI decision-support environment or of any BI application. The best you can do at any given time is to have an environment that supports the current organizational goals and that can be easily adapted to new goals. Plan to design flexible and easy-to-change BI applications so that you have the ability to modify them when the organization's goals change. This applies to all BI initiatives, from small departmental data marts to large industrial-strength enterprise data warehouses. Be prepared to modify all BI applications and BI target databases in future releases in order to provide new query and reporting capabilities and more data.