The Key Questions to Ask When Determining Business Requirements for Your Data Warehouse

Building an effective data warehouse requires a clear understanding of your organization's business requirements. To determine these requirements, it's essential to ask the right questions. In this blog post, we'll explore the key questions you need to ask to ensure your data warehouse meets your organization's needs.

1. What business problems are you trying to solve?
   

   The first step in determining your organization's business requirements is to identify the key problems that your data warehouse needs to address. This could include anything from improving sales performance to enhancing customer satisfaction.
   
   

2. What data do you need to solve those problems?

   Once you've identified the business problems, the next step is to determine what data you need to solve those problems. This might include customer data, sales data, financial data, and operational data.
   
   

3. How is the data currently stored and managed?

   It's essential to understand how the data is currently stored and managed within your organization. This could involve identifying the various systems, spreadsheets, and databases where data is stored and determining whether the data is structured or unstructured.
   
   

4. How is the data being used currently?

   To build an effective data warehouse, you need to understand how data is currently being used within your organization. This might include identifying who is using the data, how frequently it's being used, and how it's being analyzed.
   
   

5. What are your reporting and analysis requirements?

   To ensure your data warehouse is aligned with your organization's needs, you need to identify your reporting and analysis requirements. This could involve determining the types of reports and analyses that are needed, how frequently they're required, and who needs access to them.
   
   

6. What are your data governance requirements?

   Finally, it's essential to understand your organization's data governance requirements. This could include data quality, data privacy, and data security. You need to determine the level of control required over the data, who has access to it, and how it's protected.
   
   

The Key Questions to Ask When Determining Business Requirements for Your Data Warehouse. Understanding your organization's business requirements ensures that your data warehouse is aligned with your business needs and will be a valuable asset to your organization.

Skills and Departmental Considerations for Driving a Self-Service BI Approach and DWH Project 

In addition to asking the key questions mentioned earlier, it is crucial to evaluate the skills and capabilities within your organization that can drive a self-service business intelligence (BI) approach and successfully execute a data warehouse project with modernization and modern modeling techniques. Let's explore some considerations related to these skills and the departments involved. 

Which skills does your organization possess? 

To determine if your organization has the necessary skills for a self-service BI approach and a DWH project, you should assess the following:

• Data Analysis and Visualization: Identify individuals or teams with expertise in data analysis, visualization, and reporting tools. These skills are essential for creating meaningful insights and user-friendly dashboards in a self-service BI environment. 

• Data Management and Governance: Determine if your organization has professionals who can handle data management tasks, including data integration, transformation, and data quality control. Data governance experts can ensure compliance with regulations and best practices regarding data privacy and security.

• Technical Proficiency: Evaluate the technical expertise within your organization, including database administration, data modeling, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, and familiarity with modern data warehousing technologies and architectures.

• Business and Domain Knowledge: Assess if you have individuals who possess a deep understanding of your organization's business processes and domain-specific knowledge. This knowledge is crucial for effectively translating business requirements into data models and reports. 

Are you able to drive a self-service BI approach? From which department?

Implementing a self-service BI approach requires collaboration between IT departments and business users. Consider the following: 

• IT Department: The IT department plays a significant role in providing the necessary infrastructure, tools, and technical support for self-service BI. They are responsible for ensuring data availability, security, and performance. IT professionals can also provide training and guidance on data access and usage best practices. 

• Business Users and Analysts: Business users and analysts from various departments, such as sales, marketing, finance, and operations, are key stakeholders in driving a self-service BI approach. They should be empowered with user-friendly tools and training to explore data, create reports, and gain actionable insights without heavy reliance on IT. 

Do you have skills to drive a DWH project and modernize the old architecture? 

For driving a DWH project and modernizing the existing architecture, consider the following skills and departments: 

• Data Warehouse Experts: Determine if you have individuals with expertise in data warehousing, including knowledge of data modeling techniques, ETL processes, and familiarity with modern data warehousing architectures like cloud-based solutions or data lakes. 
• Database Administrators: Database administrators play a crucial role in managing and optimizing the performance of the data warehouse. They should have the skills to handle large datasets, maintain data integrity, and ensure efficient data retrieval. 
• Data Engineers: Data engineers are responsible for designing and implementing the data pipelines that extract, transform, and load data into the data warehouse. They should possess skills in programming, scripting, and working with data integration tools. 
• Collaboration Across Departments: Successful modernization of the data warehouse often requires collaboration between IT, business users, and other relevant departments. Strong communication and coordination among these stakeholders are necessary for understanding the current architecture, identifying pain points, and designing a new architecture that aligns with business requirements. 

Key Take-Away

Determining your organization's business requirements is a critical step in building an effective data warehouse. By asking the right questions, you can ensure that your data warehouse meets your organization's needs and delivers value to your business. 

Evaluating the skills within your organization is essential for driving a self-service BI approach and successfully executing a data warehouse project. Assess the expertise in data analysis and visualization, data management and governance, technical proficiency, and business and domain knowledge. 

Implementing a self-service BI approach requires collaboration between the IT department and business users. IT professionals provide the necessary infrastructure, tools, and support, while business users and analysts drive data exploration, report creation, and actionable insights. 

Driving a DWH project and modernizing the existing architecture requires specific skills and departments. Data warehouse experts, database administrators, and data engineers play vital roles, and collaboration across departments is necessary for successful modernization. 

We strongly recommend utilizing data automation tools, such as AnalyticsCreator, to streamline operations and allow staff the time to expedite problem identification and resolution, gain insights into data utilization patterns, and address data governance requirements. These tools can be valuable assets for improving your data warehouse and making better data-driven decisions.