presentation for http://analytics-to-go.blogspot.com

1. Requirements Analysis Bernd Durrwachter http://www.linkedin.com/in/bernddu

2. Key Objectives Introduce the Requirements “Iceberg” Identify the relevant aspects of Analysis Consider an Agile Approach to Requirement Analsysis

4. Relax! Not a new process! No new rules! No additional documentation! Just to inspire your thoughts…. and help with communication.

6. Try delivering a SOLUTION without knowing…

7. for WHOm

8. WHAT purpose it serves

9. HOW much

10. WHEN to deliver it

11. WHERE it is needed

13. Introducing:The Requirements Iceberg Seemingly Simple Report Request What is known, in plain sight

14. The Requirements ICEBERG Seemingly Simple Report Request … is but the surface! Reporting Tool Constraints Complex Transformations The majority is yet to be DISCOVERED Ambiguous Business Rules How to detect Change ? Onboard new Data Source Upstream System Dependencies

15. But back to the Questions…For WHOm? Simple answer: “The Customer” (next Grisham novel?) Really:The Business More aptly: For what purpose? (Business Case) Getting a solution request from customer does not cover all the requirements yet.

17. Customer Acquisition

18. Customer Conversion

19. Customer Retention

20. RISKS…

21. Audit

22. Compliance

26. Top 20% of findings, address 80% of the scenarios

27. Most relevant scenarios (sub-set with the greatest impact)

30. What problem is this “solution” trying to solve?

31. What business challenge does it need to address?

32. SCOPE

33. The right solution in the right place

35. Where Requirements & Analysis meet What does customer ask for? What is really needed? What do we already have? Identify Gap! Close Gap! ANALYSIS REQUIREMENTS STATUS QUO NEEDS

36. Who’s the CUSTOMER ? External Third Party (e.g. Affiliate, Provider) Product Mgmt Operations (e.g. Finance, Support) Peer Team (in CIO org i.e. Marketing) EDW (Technical Debt)

37. Why does the WHO matter? Different people, teams, business functions have different understandings of… Completeness Quality Performance Accuracy Precision Don’t project one customer’s expectations on another

38. The NEED Forward Looking (the “TO BE”) Reconcile what the customer asks for with what the business needs What does the customer intend to do with the solution (s)he asks for? Get underlying Business Context! Distinguish quantitativefrom qualitativeasks: Tangible metrics calculation(validate understanding), versus More acurate, timely, faster information(clarify meaning!) Note the difference between… ASK=> Request NEED=> Context REQUIREMENT=> Details

39. The STATUS QUO BackwardLooking(the “WHAT IS”)… Reports Views Reporting Data (Structure, Content) Persistent Staging Data (a.k.a. ODS, rpt_ tables) Source Data (internal) External Data

40. Identify GAP Metrics don’t exist Not sliceable as desired (dimensions) Data Quality(coverage, numbers, attribution) More Detail More History Subject Area not covered yet Change Delivery Format(CSV, view, XLS, BO, Tableau) More timely Data (finer time grain, or performance) Business Rules changed (ETL/backfill processing)

41. Close GAP Onboard new external data possibly new data acquisition method Onboard new internal data more likely via existing channels Profile Source Data Design Reporting Data (Sub) Model Build Data Structures Transform Source Data into Reporting Structures (ETL) Build customer-accessible Reporting Views Build Reports

42. More Details on Gaps Customer Need: What is the underlying calculation for the needed Business Metric? What Business Rules apply for this Report/Metric? Existing EDW: What does the existing view query code do? How does the existing ETL logic work? What is covered by the source data? How can we access the 3rd party data feed?

43. Gap Analysis Matrix NEED to find out about BUSINESS… Business Concepts (Terms, Meanings, Relationships) Business Process Work Flow Decision Points, Criteria Business Rules Possible States Changes/Transitions (criteria, scenarios) Formulas, Parameters HAVE understanding about the BUSINESS… Business Concepts (Terms, Meanings, Relationships) Business Process Work Flow Decision Points, Criteria Business Rules Possible States Changes/Transitions (criteria, scenarios) Formulas, Parameters HAVE in EDW… Reports (Metrics, Slicers) Views (Query Logic) ETL (Transformation Logic) Tables(Facts, Dimensions, Reporting, Staging) Data(Coverage, Quality, History) Source(Availability, Connection, Understanding) NEED in EDW… Reports (Metrics, Slicers) Views (Query Logic) ETL (Transformation Logic) Tables(Facts, Dimensions, Reporting, Staging) Data(Coverage, Quality, History) Source(Availability, Connection, Understanding)

44. Business Process – Flow & Steps Ad-hoc model drives better understanding We do it all the time on the white board Helps you understand the steps and concepts involved

45. Business Process - Outcomes Understand the relevant outcomes of Business Processes And how the influence each other Most likely we have to model, capture and report on these in the EDW Also known as “State Transitions”

46. Decision Tree Understand what leads to outcomes What decisions influence the process? Similar: “Fishbone” Diagrams

47. Conceptual Data Model Understand the Business Entities And their Relationships among each other Gauge Impact & Dependencies Distinguish Business… Actors Event State (as in Status) Metric (Amount, Count, Ratio)

48. Data Flow Understand Data Lineage Change Dependencies & Impact This example is very detailed. You can apply this to higher level, Conceptual Model as well In fact, you can combine any of these diagrams with each other, to illustrate a focused subject area

49. Source-to-Target Map Another way to understand Data Change And how to communicate it to the Customer

50. Use these Models! You can combine any of these diagrams with each other, to illustrate a focused subject area Use them with your customer! Have them understand and validate it (incentivize that the alternative is for them to look at ETL code, physical data models, raw source data :-)

52. Minimize “spinning” in place

54. Iterate & Increment ITERATE ==========>Revisit INCREMENT ==========>Add

55. SettingScope

56. Setting Scope You might not know the details of what you’re analyzing, but you can… set a clear scope of what you plan on analyzing, and what findingswill satisfy the need for Analysis. Determine the Type of Analysis upfront (then the approach will become clearer) Are you looking for:then: Data Relationships? Profile / Model Change Dynamics? Observe Process/Data Flow The Meaning of something? Ask People Process Dependencies? Monitor Status Bug Impact? Reverse Engineer Implementation Gap? Gap Analysis Root Cause? Root Cause Analysis

57. How to establish Progress Make sure each iteration delivers a new insight, incrementing the knowledge base. Specify clear artifacts expected from each Iteration of Analysis

58. A quick view on COMPLEXITY How many objects can you see? Are you sure they are triangles? Why are they colored? If this were a movie, what would they do next? What is this picture about? What is this useful for?

59. The Elements of COMPLEXITY SCALE-> Size DYNAMICS-> Change SEMANTICS -> Meaning CONTEXT-> Relationships CERTAINTY-> Confidence And this is the simple version. “Emergence” anyone? BTW, the Cartoon illustrates a typical human reaction to Complexity: resort to the known tools/approaches. A phenomenon also referred to as “if all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail”. The opposing extreme is: throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it

60. Complexity in the EDW – A Quiz Number of Rows Distinct PK Combinations Inserts, Updates, Deletes Track Change History (SCD Type 2) 85% column values are NULL rpt_site_activity vs. bfgmq_known join FSR with DPC

66. BI Examples Correlate the abstract to something tangible… Conceptual business process model -> Physical Data Model You see, format/presentation, of the same underlying thing, can make all the difference in clarity/meaning. BI Example: reporting tables vs. views vs. Reports)

67. Consider this… Differentiate between making things complex (blowing things out of proportion), and mapping an existing complex Process Structure Concept/Phenomenon Context: Divide & Conquer, Zoom/pan, Abstract/Concrete, Generic/Specific Did you know…. Albert Einstein was a SCRUM pioneer? “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” In other words: “We can always complicate things later”

68. Mix & Match Let’s correlate our questions w/ Complexity… SCALE How much/many? What is involved? (components) DYNAMICS What happens? How does it work? MEANING What is the purpose? What is the root cause? What types of … ? How do you define concept <X> CONTEXT What belongs together? How does (a) relate to (b) ?