Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
2
The Executive's FAQ for Data
Warehousing
When you are in a leadership role within an organization, you are charged
with the responsibility of setting corporate goals and defining the strategic
initiatives to meet them. You influence and inspire others in the organization
to help fulfill the vision and achieve these goals. This is simple in theory, but
much tougher in practice. You need to ask questions and challenge the status
quo. As a business or IT leader, it is easier to ask questions and understand
the answers within your part of the organization, but there can be a high
degree of frustration when working across IT and business boundaries. When
business leaders are asked whether they are getting what they need from their
IT organization to run their business, or when IT leaders are asked whether
they are getting what they need from the business to build a data warehouse
that will meet business challenges, the answer from both is often the same:
no
.
Part of the problem is an assumption that both business and IT inherently
understand each other's needs, when in reality the only way to truly under-
stand the requirements is to work side by side and learn from each other. As
leaders, we want to see a return on our investment (ROI). In this case, that
investment is the partnership between business and IT. If you don't invest
in the partnership, then you will never see the return you want in your data
warehouse.
This chapter is intended to provide a big dose of reality. It consists of a
high-level summary of questions that are frequently asked by executives and
senior managers regarding DW development. These are complex issues
and often require additional dialogue to clarify the question and provide an
appropriate answer for each organization. Therefore, this chapter shares only a
common interpretation of the question and the essence of the answer. These
topics are covered in much more detail throughout the rest of the topic, so
if the short answer doesn't meet your needs, then follow the references to
subsequent chapters to learn more.
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