An old case study I did on BI projects, during my Masters! :-) Take it lightly on usage of words! Just have fun.

1. B Y :
H A R I P R A S A D
M S . B I T S P I L A N I .
N O T E : N O T A C A S E
S T U D Y ,
B U T A N E V E N T
S T U D Y .
How to screw up BI project
from Day1?

2. Day 1
 Sales team meets customer and explains him that
OBIEE can be used for anything from calculating the
Sum to Displaying entire Data
warehouse!(Wrong!)
 Sales says, See here! We have a reporting tool for
your data and we have guys who can work on it!

3. Day 2
 Business Analyst/Source Data expert will meet
customer team and ask for requirements.
 The moment requirement is in his mail box he will
forward it as it is to BI team without analyzing,
asking if you have any questions, please revert back!
 BI team, who is not aware of business will scratch
their head and come up with irrelevant questions, as
they know only tool not business.
 You will always get irrelevant answers for irrelevant
questions!

4. Day 3
 Team will build a Space shuttle for customer
requirement to build a chair.
 BA will sign it for UAT without even testing!

5. Day 4
 Customer will not do proper UAT nor BA team will
try to persuade him to do so.
 Code will sign off and will go to production.
 End User will complaint.
 Customer will escalate to fix within overnight.

6. Day 5
 BA will blame technical team, technical team will
blame BA.
 Finally both struggle and finish the fix overnight.
 Questions!
 Is it a happy ending?
 Is it a pattern which is repeating in BI Projects?
 If so, what is the solution?

7. Solution
 Put an experienced BI resource from the Day 1 of
requirement gathering.
 Eliminate confusions by removing layers in between
business and BI implementation team.
 Have an iterative UAT on every requirement stage .
 Make sure to have SOW clearly defining the terms
like “Change Requirement”, “Sign Off”, “Bug Fixes”
for equal distribution of responsibilities.
 In case BA is absolutely needed, have a cross training
of Business and Technology between BA and Dev
team.