Microsoft® Business Intelligence For Dummies®

Chapter 14. Testing and Rolling Out

In This Chapter

• Getting real results early to add value persistently

• Exploring the different types of testing involved in a BI project

• Rolling out specific functionality to users

• Finding out how change affects a BI implementation

• Winning the hearts and minds of users

The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it, and correct it.

—Dale E. Turner (Oingo Boingo)

Chapter 12 discussed two different approaches to implementing a business intelligence (BI) plan: the waterfall approach and the iterative approach. The waterfall approach completes all design and development of a BI project before presenting the result to the users; it's up to the testers to find and fix any problems before releasing the new system — for better or worse — to the users. The result is tremendous pressure to get every detail exactly right the very first time — which rarely happens in the real world. An iterative approach, however, follows a cycle of "try it out, check your results, make changes, try it out again, repeat until you're satisfied with the way it works, and then move on." The iterative cycle turns the testing and rolling-out of components into gradual phases that get better and better results as they go along. With each new iteration, you can quickly verify whether a component is working as it should, roll out the shiny new iteration so users can see it and try it out, and then capture their responses for incorporation into future iterations — both the likes and the dislikes. ...