Project Success & Failure Factors

    A surprising number of data warehousing initiatives fail. Most organisations exercise the greatest of diligence in choosing the Consultancy, initiating the management team and establishing stringent processes. Yet a large number of these projects either fail to satisfy business requirements or fail to deliver:

  • "But we chose the largest and best consultancy"

  • "But we set up stringent waterfall project processes with rigid gates"

  • "But our documentation processes were the best"

  • "But our requirements took months to create and check"

  • "But we did everything right. Why did the project fail?"

Our Experience

  • It is unreasonable to expect an organisation to accurately and fully define business requirements at the beginning of a project for an application with which the organisation may not have had any experience.

  • It is unreasonable to expect no variation in business requirements between the beginning and end of a project. Requirements will substantially evolve and clarify iteratively.

  • It is unreasonable to wait until the end of the project before involving the business in the deliverables especially given the nature of data warehousing and BI.

  • It is unreasonable to expect data emperors to give up their data domains willingly

  • It is unreasonable to expect back end systems to have perfect data cleanliness

  • It is unreasonable to expect an adversarial or argumentative model between consultancy and client to work

  • It is unreasonable to expect huge and monolithic deliverables to be adequately tested

  • It is unreasonable to expect waterfall methodologies to work

  • It is unreasonable to assess performance late in the project and expect an acceptable outcome

How do we overcome these problems

  • Track Record, Track Record, Track Record

  • Our own proprietary, tried and tested project methodologies

  • BES known, skilled, tried and tested development resources

  • Lightning fast delivery to assuage anxieties, build business credibility and get the ball started

  • Heuristic project management of stakeholders, business, functional and technical tiers

  • KISS and Grow model of delivery – tried and tested in many organisations

  • Symbiotic Partnership