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IMPLEMENTATION
Fast Agile Implementation, Setup for BI Success, Get everyone on Board, Increase users confidence, smooth delivery, build trust and goodwill
We use an agile implementation method to successfully deliver analytics projects. The overall agile method engages users early, reduces the overall risk by delivering iteratively and not “big bang”, and accelerates time to value. It ensures close collaboration and communication at all times with your stakeholders, to ensure successful user uptake of analytics tools that are delivered. Our approach is broken down into three manageable phases: Discover, Plan & Execute
The “discover phase” involves us working with you to understand your key strategic objectives, project goals and vision, benefits and business requirements. The business requirements are collected through a series of collaborative sessions and the output will be a list of business questions, use cases and reporting needs. Once we have your requirements, we start to assess the data that will support them. The investigation will uncover where your requirements cannot be met, and highlight the data gaps that exist. We do this data discovery to ensure less “data” issues being identified much later downstream in your BI project, which could potentially cause cost impact and possible overrun of your project. We identify which requirements can be met now, those that will be met later when data becomes available, and those where data will need to be sourced from another system. We now have a priority list of requirements vs. data available, and we can enter the next phase.
The “plan phase” builds the value roadmap from the output of the “discover phase”. The value roadmap takes the priorities identified by your stakeholders, and turns this into a plan of delivery which is called a “sprint”. A sprint is a set period of time, usually 1 – 3 weeks, in which specific work has to be completed and made ready to review by your stakeholders. A sprint begins with the planning meeting to discuss each user story and sizes the effort of delivery. Once this is completed, a set of tasks are assigned to the development team and the sprint begins. During the sprint, there are daily stand-up meetings every morning to work through any issues and review progress. Testing of the components that are being built is done early, to ensure there are no surprises later on in the project. Once development has been completed, the team will conduct a demonstration to your stakeholders of the new functionality built. At the end of each sprint, there is a retrospective with all the stakeholders, which reviews – what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what needs to be improved for the next sprint activity.
Once the product has been accepted by your stakeholders, the third phase of activity is the “execute and iterate phase” which manages user acceptance testing, and creates the plan to deploy the functionality that has been built for your business stakeholders. We also start to plan the next sprint activities, and begin the cycle of iteration for the next piece of functionality that your business desires. This continuous cycle ensures we deliver small controlled components to your business which have immediate business value and impact.
Benefits of using our team for implementation
1. Minimize risk by early delivery – You don’t need to wait for months, we deliver working components frequently, and you see clear progress every few weeks. We make sure that we are fulfilling your expectations and that the work is not being done in isolation. Every component is tangible, you see it working, you see how your data comes to life, and your continuous feedback is taken on board. The product is more intuitive and easier to use.
2. Flexible process – We know that your requirements will change even in later stages. You can do plenty of analysis and design, but you’re unlikely to be certain what you want until you see and use the application. We encourage you to validate and reprioritize your requirements at every stage of the project.
3. Clear Communication – business and technology – Business and technology speak different languages, and we don’t want to end up in two different worlds. To ensure transparency, we encourage daily cooperation between business people and developers. That way we make sure that nothing is done without input from your stakeholders.
4. Increase user confidence and prevent delays at hand over – test early and often – Our specialists are heavily engaged in testing as they build each component. This increases user confidence in the application, and prevents change requests with major delays further down the line.
5. Continuously applying lessons learned – every time we deliver a component we see how well we’ve done, what we’ve learnt, and apply this knowledge to the next stage. Checking in at each stage adds to the overall success of getting it right first time.
6. Smooth delivery – You need the right person to manage the project. Not a technician who doesn’t know the first thing about managing a project, and not a project manager who doesn’t know analytics. Our team understands both analytics and project management and delivers projects quicker and with fewer defects.
7. Aligning your people – Training and Change management – People are set in their ways of doing things. A new system requires some adjustment and new skills. We make sure to transfer those skills so that the new system gets used properly and becomes the “normal” way of doing things. We actively engage with people affected by the change to build trust and goodwill. Not doing this can scupper an analytics project.
Please contact us on +2348028745331 or email us info@dstlng.com