20 Questions to Ask
When Formulating a
BI Strategy and
Roadmap
Dr. Bjarne Berg
COMERIT
© 2012 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
In This Session …
•
•
•
•
We will take a look at the top 20 questions that should be
considered as part of a BI strategy
We will look at project sizing, staffing, tool selection, and
technical architecture
We will explore BI self-service and service level agreements, and
take a look at a real project’s way of demonstrating success
After this session you will be able to start formulating your own BI
strategy to guide your implementation
1
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
2
#1: Align Your BI Strategy with Your Company’s Strategy
•
•
•
•
What are the drivers for the project?
Why do you need visibility – increase revenue, decrease
expenses, increase competitive advantage (how? And how do you
measure this?)
Who are the company’s customers – what do they have in
common? Who are their vendors (your competitors)?
How can the company’s customers be segmented? What changes
are occurring in the customer base? Where is the company
heading?
The enterprise data warehouse should set the stage for
effective analysis of information to make strategic
decisions and identify competitive advantages
(proactive and not retroactive!)
3
#2: What Data Warehouse Strategy to Employ
•
•
•
Typically, the current state of Data Warehousing (DW) is a
combination of centralized and decentralized warehouses
resulting in inefficiencies
Moving to a centralized DW should enable future projects to
reduce costs by leveraging common hardware, standardizing on
software, and leveraging a pool of technical resource (is your
project a cost-saving project?)
How can you provide information, not data, for decision making
(KPIs?)
4
#2: What Data Warehouse Strategy to Employ (cont.)
•
•
For example, project X provides an end-to-end BW/BI solution that
empowers decision making to help provide better customer
service and deliveries to increase profitability – How?
 Increased accuracy of reports
 Timely information in an interactive, easy-to-use manner
 Standardized reporting method and shared tools
 Access to enterprise-wide information
 Continuous monitoring of KPIs; profitability and
margin analysis
The goal is to give users the information when they need it and in
a format they understand so they can execute day-to-day
decisions and be more productive
5
Defining the Scope
•
•
For the first go-live, keep the scope as simple as possible, in an
area with solid standard BW content (i.e., Accounts Payable,
Accounts Receivable, G/L, or COPA)
You have only three dimensions to work with:
If one of these dimensions changes, you have to
adjust at least one of the others or the quality of your
BI initiative will suffer
6
#3: Writing the Strategic Plan for Your Enterprise BI Effort
•
•
•
•
•
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Background
Strategy
 Motivator of change (why?)
 As-is state of systems and reporting
 To-be state of enterprise data warehouse
 Benefits of the enterprise data warehouse
 Proposed scope
 Proposed architecture
 Proposed roll-out plan
 Proposed project organization
 Proposed support organization
Resources
 Internal resource assessment
 External resource assessment
 Training needs
 Recruitment
The strategic plan
should contain
these sections:
•
•
•
•
Vendor overview and/or selection
 Hardware
 Software
 Partners
Budgets
 Detailed budget
 Proposed funding approval
Limitations, Assumptions, and Risks
References
7
The Living BI Strategy — How to Make It Work …
•
•
•
•
A BI strategy is a living document that is subject to change
It is not a one-time effort that is ignored after the first change
(many create a strategy only to file it in a drawer)
The strategy should be clearly communicated to all team
members and the business community
Change control approvals are needed to make the strategic
planning process work in reality
A periodic review should be scheduled
(e.g., quarterly) to monitor how well the
implementations follow the strategy
8
#4: Pick a Formal BI Methodology — You Have Many
Choices
•
•
Accelerated SAP (ASAP) methodology is not your only choice
Even though they are harder to manage on a large BI project,
consider RAD, JAD, or EP (Scrum/Agile) based on the time to
delivery and impact of failure
When to Select Different Methodologies
High
Joint Application Design
(JAD)
System development Life cycle
based methodologies
(SDLC)
Time to
Delivery
Extreme Programming
(EP)
Rapid Application Development
(RAD)
Look at what your
organizational
partners have done
You may know more
about RAD than you
think!
Low
Low
High
Impact of Failure
Source: Bjarne Berg, Data
Management Review 2004
9
#5: The Project Scope and Project Sizing — What to Build
•
•
ID
By outlining high-level deliverables, we can make a set of assumptions for a
bottom-up project sizing in terms of labor hours, customization, and number of
BI reports and dashboards
This example is for a BI program with 3 projects
Application Area
1 OpEx
Proj-1- ETL
Proj-1 DSO (LVL-1 w.o. & DTP)
2 OpExProj-1- DSO Reportable
3 OpEx
4 OpEx
Proj-1- New Cubes
5 OpEx
Proj-1- Masterdata attribution
6 Proj-1
OpEx - BOBJ and reporting
Proj-2- ETL
7 FAST
Proj-2- DSO (LVL-1 w.o. & DTP)
8 FAST
Proj-2- DSO reportable
9 FAST
10 FAST
Proj-2- Masterdata changes
11 FAST
Proj-2- InfoCubes
Proj-2- BOBJ and Reporting
12 FAST
13 Metrics
Proj-3 - ETL
14 Metrics
Proj-3 - DSO (LVL-1 w.o. & DTP)
15 Metrics
Proj-3 - DSO reportable
16 Metrics
Proj-3 - Masterdata changes
Proj-3 - InfoCubes
17 Metrics
Proj-3 - BOBJ and Reporting
18 Metrics
19 Proj-1
OpEx Phase -2 Enhancements
20 Proj-2
FAST Phase -2 Enhancements
Proj-3
21 Metrics Phase -2 Enhancements
Quantity
(estimated)
4
4
3
4
5
4
3
3
2
4
5
4
3
3
4
1
1
1
Development
Strategy
Enhancements
New
New
New
Redesign
New
Enhancements
New
Enhancements
Enhancements
New
New
New
New
New
New
New
New
Enhancements
Enhancements
Enhancements
BW enhancements (H/M/L)
Dashboards Analysis reports
WebI reports (Estimated #)
ETL/DTP DSO IC Masterdata
(#)
Web Excel PPT Standard Ad-hoc Re-design
H
M
H H
- H
H
6
22
30
1
30
10
M
H
H H M
- H
6
18
12
1
28
8
H
H
H H H
- H
8
28
16
1
22
2
L
L L
L
2
7
5
5
1
L
L L
L
2
6
2
5
1
L
L L
L
3
6
3
5
1
-
This preliminary estimate is based on a solid skill set of SAP NetWeaver BW
and SAP BusinessObjects developers, a new BW implementation
10
Use Project Sizing Benchmarks
•
•
We base our assumptions on average development time for each
of the area based on complexity
Naturally, some may finish earlier, while others may take longer,
so these numbers are averaged based on experiences with 50
SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects projects during the
last decade
High/New
Medium
Low
BW Development Hours
ETL & DSO/D
IC
mapping
TP
260
300
280
230
260
240
220
180
160
MD
180
140
68
Front-end Hours (incl RAD sessions)
Require
RAD
Item
Build
Cut-Over
ments
sessions
Dashboards
110
11
280
21
Analysis
32
14
24
4
WebI
24
7
11
2
Total
422
74
44
Many new BI program managers underestimate testing and changes of
reports and dashboards during User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
The testing time for the BW work is separated as its own estimate, while
the RAD sessions are included in the SAP BusinessObjects assumptions
#6: Look at a BI Project as a Holistic Effort
Development Tasks
BW enhancements (hours)
Dashboards
ETL/mappin
(hrs)
Masterdata
IC
DSO/DTP
g
0
0
0
0
1040
Testing and Deployment
Supporting tasks
0
0
0
WebI
New &
adhoc
0
312
208
229
89
358
394
447
3,077
920
1200
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
636
424
466
182
729
802
912
6,272
3 OpEx - DSO Reportable
0
0
840
0
0
0
0
0
0
252
168
185
72
289
318
361
2,485
4
0
0
1120
0
0
0
0
0
0
336
224
246
96
385
424
482
3,313
0
0
0
900
0
0
0
0
0
270
180
198
77
310
341
387
2,663
ID
Application Area
1 OpEx - ETL
2
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
OpEx- DSO (LVL-1 w.o. &
DTP)
OpEx - New Cubes
OpEx - Masterdata
attribution
OpEx - BOBJ and
reporting
FAST - ETL
FAST - DSO (LVL-1 w.o.
& DTP)
FAST - DSO reportable
FAST - Masterdata
changes
FAST - InfoCubes
FAST - BOBJ and
Reporting
Metrics - ETL
Metrics - DSO (LVL-1
w.o. & DTP)
Metrics - DSO
reportable
Metrics - Masterdata
changes
Metrics - InfoCubes
Metrics - BOBJ and
Reporting
OpEx Phase -2
Enhancements
FAST Phase -2
Enhancements
Metrics Phase -2
Enhancements
Total
Analysis reports (hrs)
Web
Excel
PPT
Require
ments
Project
mgmt
Basis
Unit
test
System Integrati
Rollout
on test
test
Initiative
total hrs
0
0
0
0
2532
1628
2220
74
1760
760
1643
0
531
2123
2336
2654
18,260
920
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
276
184
202
79
316
348
396
2,722
780
900
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
504
336
370
144
578
636
722
4,970
0
900
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
270
180
198
77
310
341
387
2,663
0
0
0
280
0
0
0
0
0
84
56
62
24
96
106
120
828
0
0
1120
0
0
0
0
0
0
336
224
246
96
385
424
482
3,313
0
0
0
0
2532
1332
888
74
1584
760
1282
0
423
1690
1859
2113
14,537
1300
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
390
260
286
112
447
492
559
3,846
1040
1200
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
672
448
493
193
771
848
963
6,627
0
900
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
270
180
198
77
310
341
387
2,663
0
0
0
540
0
0
0
0
0
162
108
119
46
186
204
232
1,598
0
0
1120
0
0
0
0
0
0
336
224
246
96
385
424
482
3,313
0
0
0
0
3376
2072
1184
74
1056
1013
1552
0
516
2065
2272
2582
17,763
220
180
160
68
844
518
370
0
264
442
525
138
186
746
820
932
6,413
220
180
160
68
844
444
148
0
264
442
466
138
169
675
742
843
5,802
220
180
160
68
1266
444
222
0
264
568
565
138
205
819
901
1024
13,973
15,371
6,660
5,640 4,680
1,924
11,394
6,438 5,032
222
5,192
9,089
9,436
4,159 3,493
17,467
7,044
120,171
This estimate is at a +/- 15% accuracy. A more detailed sizing exercise should be
undertaken at the beginning of each phase and staffing plans updated accordingly.
#7: Give Estimated Labor Hours by Projects
Estimated Labor Hours
19,259 , 16%
36,070 , 30%
Project-1
OpEx
Project-2
FAST
Metrics
Project-3
Phase-2 enhancements
(all tracks)
35,809 , 30%
29,033 , 24%
This creates a “menu” that senior leadership can select from while seeing the overall
relative size of the projects from an efforts perspective
Estimated Labor Hours by Activity — All Projects
Estimated Labor Hours
Backend BW and ETL
BOBJ front-end
17,467 , 15%
9,436 , 8%
Requirements
18,904 , 16%
Testing
Basis
Project management
4,159 , 3%
Roll-out
28,278 , 23%
32,837 , 27%
9,089 , 8%
Presenting the data also by different tasks provides guidance on how to staff the
project and how many resources may be required
Estimated Labor Hours by Track and Activity
Estimated Labor Hours
9,856
10,000
9,785
9,000
7,933
8,000
7,000
7,762
6,410
6,100
6,020
6,000
5,682
5,243
5,205
4,900
5,000
4,220
3,726
4,000
3,000
2,566
2,847
2,772
2,230
2,262
2,000
1,324
1,070
1,342
1,000
-
This estimate is at a +/- 15% accuracy. A more detailed sizing exercise should be
undertaken at the beginning of each phase and staffing plans updated accordingly.
#8: Estimate the Full-Time Employee (FTE) by Project
Activity
Project 1 - Requirements
Project 1 - BW Development
Project 1 - BOBJ Development
Project 1 - Project management
Project 1 - Basis
Project 1 - Testing
Project 1 - Rollout
Project 2 - Requirements
Project 2 - BW Development
Project 2 - BOBJ Development
Project 2 - Project management
Project 2 - Basis
Project 2 - Testing
Project 2 - Rollout
Project 3 - Requirements
Project 3 - BW Development
Project 3 - BOBJ Development
Project 3 - Project management
Project 3 - Basis
Project 3 - Testing
Project 3 - Rollout
Estimated
Labor Hours
2,566
6,020
5,682
2,847
1,324
9,856
5,243
2,230
4,900
6,410
2,262
1,070
7,933
4,220
3,726
6,100
7,762
2,772
1,342
9,785
5,205
FTE Equivalents
Project-3,
19.80 , 32%
Project-1,
20.70 , 34%
Project-2,
20.50 , 34%
Estimate the FTE by 1,620 hours available for real project work per employee, not the
hours the employee works overall (i.e., 1,680 or 1,920)
#9: Be Aware of the Many Pitfalls of BI Efforts
•
•
•
Failure to break from as-is environment
 Treating legacy systems as “requirements”
 Comparing and replicating old reports and system
functionality
Underestimating development effort of complex requirements
 ERP is different than most legacy systems; as-is reporting
 Failing to understand sources of information. (i.e., sales
reporting) can come from sales orders, deliveries, billings, A/R,
G/L, or COPA
Single sponsor
 Lack of corporate ownership and executive buy-in
 No succession plan and the Enterprise BI Program often
becomes an “orphan”
17
#9: Be Aware of the Many Pitfalls of BI Efforts (cont.)
•
•
Failure to quickly disable legacy reporting systems
 Creates competing systems, politics, and no real cost savings
 Removes urgency and creates slow user adaptation
Overly complex architecture and lack of enforcing of standards
Technology is seldom the reason why BI programs
fail; organization and strong leadership is
paramount
18
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
19
#10: Plan for Developer Training Before the Project Starts
•
•
•
Make sure your
internal staff is
well trained before
the project starts
These 3 official
SAP
BusinessObjects
classes should be
taken by all project
team members
Schedule these
together as a oneweek training class
•
Dashboard Core – 2 days (BOX-310)
•
This course is intended for inexperienced SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0
developers who need to create and distribute interactive and connected dashboards.
Participants will gain the detailed knowledge necessary to design a dashboard that
can be used to facilitate the decision making process. Participants will become
familiar with methods for connecting their dashboards to popular live data sources.
Participants will be able to shorten their development time using templates, themes,
and best practices when designing dashboards.
•
Analysis Edition for Microsoft Office 1-day (BOAN-10)
•
Audience: Consultants, Project Team Members, Power Users. Learn the basic
functions and navigation options of Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office. Learn the
special functions and layout design options of Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office.
•
BI 4.0 Web Intelligence Report 2-days (BOW-310)
•
The target audience for this course is report designers who need to access and
analyze information using Interactive Analysis and BI launch pad. Participants will
gain the comprehensive skills and in-depth knowledge needed to access, analyze, and
share data using SAP BusinessObjects Interactive Analysis and BI launch pad. After
the course, participants will be able to efficiently and effectively manage personal and
corporate documents to access the information they and report users need, when
they need it. They will be able to design reports using Interactive Analysis and share
their analysis with other users.
20
#11: Conduct Hands-On Workshops for Continued
Education
•
•
•
Plan for hands-on workshops 2-3 months after the formal training
is completed to get advanced concepts answered
WebI workshop – 2 days
 Covers WebI development as basic, intermediate, and advanced
development concepts. Client covering facilities and PCs and
cost is based on consulting charges and travel costs for
facilitator, regardless of how many attend (normally max. 12).
Xcelsius (Dashboard) workshop – 1 day
 Covers Dashboard development as basic, intermediate, and
advanced development concepts. Client covering facilities and
PCs and cost is based on consulting charges and travel costs for
facilitator, regardless of how many attend (normally max. 12).
Many do not know what questions to ask during first-time training. It is important to
have follow-up training after 2-3 months of hands-on working with the BI tools.
This makes the team really productive!
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
22
#12: Selecting Objective Measures for the BI SLA
•
Measures drive behavior, so
be careful when selecting
them. They should be:
 Simple to understand and
easy to calculate
 Meaningful and drive the
behavior you want to
encourage
 Controllable and immune
to manipulations
 Instruments that collect
measures must be
consistent overtime and
as automated as possible
Sites, such as the free online “KPI-Library,” have over 6,000 standard measure
definitions based on the SEC, API, ISO, FASB, GAAP, IEEE, and other organizations
23
Standardized — BI SLA Performance Measures
•
Standard measures exist for SLAs. These include:
 First-Level Call Resolution (FLCR)
 Average Call Answer Time (ACAT)
 Percentage Calls Re-opened within Two weeks (PCRT)
 Percentage of Training Type Calls (PTTC)
 Number of Tickets Escalated to level-2 support (NTE2)
 Percent of Tickets Escalated to level-2 support (PTE2)
 Number of Tickets per Service Employees (NTSE)
 Number of Service Employees per User (NSEU)
 Average Service Employees Training Level (ASET)
 Percent Service Employees Certified (PSEC)
 Turnover Rate of Service Employees (TRSE)
 End User Satisfaction Score (EUSS)
 Number of System Failures (NOSF)
 Number of Critical System Failures (NOCF)
24
More BI SLA Performance, More Measures
•
Additional measures
 Mean Time between Failures (MTBF)
 Mean Time between Critical Failures (MTCF)
 Mean Time to Provision (MTTP)
 Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
 Percent Up-time Per System (PUPS)
 Percent Down-Time Per System (PDPS)
 Percent Call-Back to Customers (PCBC)
You can create balanced
 Cost per Service Ticket (CPST)
BI-SLA scorecards by
 Cost per Service Employee (CPSE)
assigning weights.
 Cost per Serviced System (CPSS)
Pick 10-12 initially and add
 SLA Operating Efficiency (SLAOE)
more as the relationship
 SLA Operating Effectiveness (SLAOF)
matures
 Employee Turnover Rate (EMTR)
25
The BI SLA Components
•
The BI SLA sections should include:
 Duration of SLA
 Party definitions
 Communication channels
 Roles and Responsibilities
 Legal obligations and jurisdiction
 Financial obligation and payment terms
 Service-level definitions
 Systems and priorities
 Users and priorities
 Processes and priorities
 Security requirements
 Reporting and Escalations
 Termination clauses
 Contact lists for operations
Source: The SLA Toolkit, 2012
26
Secret: You Can Buy SLA Templates from Online Vendors
•
Some vendors provide complete
toolkits for generic SLA agreements
that you can use to “fill in the blanks”

Prices typically range from $199 to $999
Source: www.service-levelagreement.net , 2012
•
•
Source: www.sla-world.com/check.htm , 2012
There are even detailed checklists to assure that you don’t
forget to include critical items in your SLA, such as legal
remedies, jurisdictions, intellectual property rights, etc.
Simpler, free templates can be also downloaded online at:
 www.continuityplantemplates.com/files/it-service-levelagreement-templates.docx
27
#13: BI Users Also Have Responsibilities Under the SLA
•
The BI users should also have specific responsibilities under the
SLA. These should be spelled out in detail. This include:
 All BI users must read and sign a formal corporate
security policy and enterprise data sharing rules
 BI users will use only specified telephone numbers,
Web sites, and email addresses to request support (no “work
around”)
 Each BI user must attend two hours of BI training sessions
before receiving a log-on
 Each BI power user must attend a specific training session on
Crystal, WebI, Analysis, Xcelsius, etc. (each software used)
It is in the BI program and user’s best interest to
have clearly defined user responsibilities
28
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
29
#14: Use Data Visualization — SAP BusinessObjects
Dashboards
•
•
Dashboards can be built using
the SAP BusinessObjects
Dashboards tool (formerly
known as Xcelsius)
It is an easy way to present
data graphically and with
simple navigation
#15: Design Your Mobile Dashboards Differently
•
Pick a mobile
platform that you will
support (Android,
Apple, etc.) and
design towards that
platform
•
Mobile dashboards
makes most sense
when executives,
managers, and
leaders have mobile
devices that have
sufficient display
area (not phones)
•
All dashboards are most useful when compared to
something. This dashboard is relative to a business plan.
•
Notice that all graphs can be displayed many ways and
that color coding is consistent across dashboards
31
Number-Based Dashboards
Dashboards can
also be highly
formatted and static
with little user
interaction
• In this dashboard,
we included some
KPIs and only the
balance sheet for
an organization,
instead of using
Crystal reports for
this sort of work
•
Not all dashboards have a high degree of navigation and
imagery. For finance dashboards, presenting the numbers in a
meaningful way may be more important.
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — Excel Interface
•
•
The SAP
BusinessObjects
Analysis tool
exists in both:
 Microsoft Office
edition
 OLAP edition
(Web)
The Microsoft
Office edition
supports both
Excel and
PowerPoint
Image source SAP AG
33
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — PowerPoint Interface
The tool has a query panel and can embed “live” BI analysis in
the Microsoft Office applications Excel and PowerPoint
34
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis — Web Edition
•
•
The edition for OLAP (Web edition) is great for analysts who want to interact
with the data and also add their own calculations, formatting, and charts
The output from this analysis can be shared with others within a department or
a logical grouping of employees who need to see the information
This is not a basic reporting tool, but an analysis tool
35
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer — Exploration Tool
•
•
•
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
is a tool that is intended for
rapid interactive analysis of
large volumes of data
Think of it as a BI search
engine
The tool works by indexing
large volume of data on
dedicated server blades using
SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver
BW Accelerator technology
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is
accessed through pre-built Information
Spaces. These define what fields are
available in the exploration and what users
can navigate on.
The core benefit of Explorer (accelerated version): It is really fast!
36
SAP Crystal Reports Is a Pixel Controlled Reporting Tool
•
•
•
Crystal Reports was one of
the leading vendors that
became part of Business
Objects and, later, SAP
Crystal, with its two
versions, is a great tool for
batch reporting of “pixel
controlled” formatted
reports
There are some
capabilities to do
interactive analysis, but it
is primarily a tool for
structured information
access
37
#16: Be Very Selective in What BI Tool to Deploy
•
All SAP tools have strength and weaknesses
 This is a subjective summary of each of the major tools
Target User
Development
Capabilities
Tool
End
User
Power ExecuUser
tives
End
User
Power
IT
External
User Author Developer Graphing Navigation
data
Web Application
Designer
-
-
-
Dashboard
Designer
(Xcelsius)
-
-
-
Visual Composer
External
web
services Simplicity
OLAP
-
-
-
-
-
-
Analysis Edition
for OLAP (web)
-
-
Analysis MS
edition
-
-
Crystal Reports
-
BO Explorer
-
Limited Support
-
-
-
Interactive
Analysis
ad-hoc (WebI)
Ad-Hoc
querying
Longterm
Strategy
-
-
Some Support
Good Support
-
-
-
-
38
Demo — Documenting Project Success Using Dashboards
39
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
40
#17: Give Employees the Ability to Build Their Own Reports
•
•
•
The major decision for an SAP BI-driven enterprise is to determine
who gets access to each tool
There is often a temptation in the IT community to want to keep
the tools under their domain – that is a mistake
The IT community should actively work with the power and casual
users to improve human capabilities and thereby teach them to
become more productive employees
Chinese Proverb
41
#18: Teach Users to Build BI Workspaces and Modules
•
Deploy the BI launch pad and teach users to build their own BI Workspaces.
This allows them to link many SAP BI tools in the same area, without the need
to jump between them.
In this workspace, we have three Dashboards, one WebI report, one
Analysis report, and one Crystal report running at the same time
42
The Text Module
•
•
Using the Text Module,
we can add our
comments and update
them whenever we like
There are two
options:
 Regular text
 HTML
(allows you
to use HTML
tags to
format your
text)
43
The Compound Module with a Text Module
•
Creating a
compound
module is so
simple that
anyone with
Microsoft Word
or PowerPoint
skills can learn
it in less than 5
minutes!!
The Compound Module enables you
to display many modules together,
including text, dashboards, WebI
reports, Crystal reports, and Analysis
for OLAP
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
45
#19: Align Project Scope and Milestones with Technology
•
•
The project scope is significant and the work should be tailored to
getting to testing phase as soon as possible
Balance your effort with the following proportion:
Task
Analysis/WebI
Dashboarding
Crystal Report
Requirements gathering
15%
15%
10%
Development and POC
40%
30%
45%
Unit Testing
5%
5%
5%
System Testing
5%
5%
5%
Integration Testing
5%
10%
10%
Performance Testing
5%
10%
5%
User Acceptance Testing
15%
15%
10%
Cut-Over/Rollout
10%
10%
10%
These are based on labor hours, not project duration. Staffing
should be done accordingly. The key with a BI project is to get
to testing as soon as possible and spend 40-50% of the time on
testing and enhancements (JAD, RAD, or Agile).
46
9/14-9/15
R04P x0Q
2011,
Nov.
2005 BW
/BW
R04
V1W4
7.3 and
BW 3.5 Upgrade
BI 4.0
Upgrade
Conv. Mock
I
G
Mth.
End
2/20
2/13
2/6
1/30
1/23
1/16
1/9
1/2
12/26
12/19
12/12
12/5
11/28
x0Q Conv.
x0V Conv.
x0V Mock
G
I
Integration Test 1
Conv.
I/G x0V/x0Q
Mig & Rgrs.
Month End
Mock
10/15-10/16
R04I x01
Month.
End
Integration Test 2
9/17-9/18
R04P x01
Early
Orders
Prod. Conv
P
Cut
Over
G
I
R04
V1W4
BW 3.5 Upgrade
Break-Fix Window
10/4
Proto 1 Support Pk
Apply/Tst
Integrated Unit Test
Proto 2 Support Pk
TPR Fix
Support Pk
11/10-11/11
R05I xT0
12/15-12/16
R05I ITC2 Mock Prep
10/17 spt. Pk xT0
Data/Mig Conversions
P Regression
Mock
I/G
Conversions
10/18-10/20
R05P+spt pk xTS
9/22-9/23
R05I xT0
Training Conv.
Mth
End
Month.
End
System Test 1
Prior Waves
9/5
R05P xT0
11/21
P
P x0V/x0Q
Mig& Rgrs.
7/28-7/29
R04I xTS
2012,
March
2006 / R05
Global
Project
W1
Project
X (1)
Dashboard
and HANA
Rollout
11/14
11/7
10/31
10/24
10/17
10/10
10/3
10/12-10/13
R04I x0V
10/5-10/6
R04I x0V
9/7-9/8
R04P x0V
System
Test
9/26
9/19
9/12
9/5
8/29
8/22
8/15
8/8
8/1
Week starting
7/25
Detailed Planning Is Required to Meet the Milestone Dates
Mock
P
I
G
Integration Test 1
Conversions
Training Data Staging
x0V Conv.
x0V
I Mock
P x0V/x0Q
Mig& Rgrs.
P
Regression
Prior Waves
x0Q Conv.
Mock
G
I/G x0V/x0Q
Mig & Rgrs.
Integration Test 2
Prod. Conv
In a complex project with multiple development environments
and releases, it is important to have a well-communicated and
detailed chart to make sure everyone is in-sync at all times
Mth
End
Erly
Ordr
47
#20: Write a BI Scope Agreement and Implement Change
Control
•
First, determine what the business drivers are and make sure you
meet these objectives. Define the scope in terms of what is
included, as well as what is not included.
Scope Management Processes
Project
Initiation
Requirements
Gathering
(Scope Planning)
Project Scope
Statement
(Scope Definition)
Project Committment
(Scope Verification)
Scope Change
Control
Source: PMI
•
Make sure you obtain approval of the scope before you progress
any further. All your work from now on will be driven based on
what is agreed to at this stage. As part of the written scope
agreement, make sure you implement a formal change request
process.
This typically includes a cost-benefit estimate for each
change request and a formal approval process
48
Change Control Process — Example
Business Teams
Identify change,
evaluate need, and
submit, if valid.
Change Control DB
Operating Model
Integration Team
Current scope
of work?
Yes
Operating Model
Integration Team
No
Update to relevant
release and notify
Business. No further
action at this time.
Change Control DB
Operating Model
Integration Team
Tracks
Assign to
responsible Track.
Analyze request
and estimate
impacts.
Change Control DB
Change Control DB
Tracks
Escalation Levels
1. Team Lead
2. Project Integration Team
3. Project Management Org
4. Project Management Council
PMC / PMO
Project Integration Team
Team Lead
Tracks
Based on
impact, can a
decision be made at
this level?
Yes
PMC / ESC
PMO
EDGE Integration Team
Team Lead
Tracks
Identify change,
evaluate need and
assign to
responsible Track.
Make/review
decision.
Change Control DB
Change Control DB
No
Escalate request to
next level in
organization for
decision/review.
Change Control DB
Team Lead
Tracks
Communicate
resolution to
Business.
Tracks
Yes
Would
Business like further
review?
No
Execute action
plans and close
change request.
Change Control DB
Change control processes should be formal, with escalation rules that
can be used if disputes occur. This example is from a large SAP project
that included BI and BW and which needed very strong scope control.
49
What We’ll Cover …
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Planning, Scoping, and Sizing the SAP BI Initiative
BI Program Training
BI Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Picking the Right BI Tools
BI Self-Service Implementation and Limitations
Milestone Plans and Change Management
Wrap-Up
50
Where to Find More Information
•
•
•
•
•
Ralph Hughes, Agile Data Warehousing Project Management:
Business Intelligence Systems Using Scrum (Morgan Kaufmann,
October 2012).
David Lai and Xavier Hacking, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
4.0 Cookbook (Packt Publishing, 2011).
John Boyer, Bill Frank, Brian Green, Tracy Harris, and Kay Van De
Vanter, Business Intelligence Strategy: A Practical Guide for
Achieving BI Excellence (Mc Press, 2010).
Jim Brogden, Heather Sinkwitz, Mac Holden, Dallas Marks, and
Gabriel Orthous, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence: The
Comprehensive Guide (SAP PRESS, 2012).
Bjarne Berg and Penny Silvia, SAP HANA: An Introduction (SAP
PRESS, 2012).
51
Where to Find More Information (cont.)
•
•
Richard Martin, Data Warehouse 100 Success Secrets – 100 most
Asked questions on Data Warehouse Design, Projects, Business
Intelligence, Architecture, Software and Models (Emereo
Publishing, July 2009).
Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, Waltzing with Bears: Managing
Risk on Software Projects (Dorset House, 2003).
52
7 Key Points to Take Home
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Spend serious time on creating a formal BI strategy that is aligned
to your company’s overall objective
Make sure your strategy has a set of solid sponsors (not one)
Select multiple front-end tools for different users
Size your project based on labor hours and base your budget on
these
Create a 24-36 month implementation strategy and get approvals
for the delivery plan
Staff your team with experienced resources and train
inexperienced staff before the project starts
Create a Program Management Office (PMO) and move all major
BI projects under this management for coordination, standards,
and quality assurance
53
Your Turn!
How to contact me:
Dr. Bjarne Berg
[email protected]
Continue the conversation! Post your
questions in the BI-BW Forum on
Insider Learning Network*
*bit.ly/BI-BWForum
54
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and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Wellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled by
SAP.
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