Data Warehousing For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 32. Ten Signs of a Data Warehousing Project in Trouble

In This Chapter

• Failing to agree on your project during various phases

• Making bad project decisions

• Losing team members

• Dealing with poor communication

• Discovering problems with your data warehousing products

You can most easily tell that your data warehousing project is in trouble when you don't have anything to show for your efforts when you thought you would. Try to get some indication that trouble's brewing, however, before you reach that point. This chapter presents ten early warning signs.

The Project's Scope Phase Ends with No General Consensus

The allotted time for the scope phase of your data warehousing project ends (usually two or three weeks — a little longer for large projects), and the members of your constituency are unhappy. They're still grumbling and disagreeing about the project's direction and its potential business value (or lack thereof), the relative priorities of capabilities and how they map to various project phases, and other points of contention.

You're in trouble.

The Mission Statement Gets Questioned after the Scope Phase Ends

You're three weeks into the design phase, following a four-week scope. You're in an all-morning status meeting with the IT and business organization executive sponsors, as well as four key managers from the business groups who plan to use the data warehouse the most.

Just before a coffee break, one of the managers says, "You know that mission statement we talked about on the second ...