The Microsoft® Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server 2008 R2 and the Microsoft® Business Intelligence Toolset, Second Edition

Chapter 1. Defining Business Requirements: Building the foundation.

Business requirements are the bedrock of the successful data warehouse/business intelligence (DW/BI) system. Business requirements guide the development team in making the biggest strategic choices, such as prioritizing subject areas for implementation, and in making the smallest tactical design decisions, such as how to present key performance indicators on the users' screens. In this chapter, we cover the process of gathering business requirements and converting them into a DW/BI system strategy. We describe the process of interviewing business and IT representatives and mapping their analytic requirements back to the core business processes (such as orders, page views, or account transactions) that generate the needed data. These business processes are the building blocks of the DW/BI system. After the requirements are documented, we offer a technique for working with senior management to prioritize the implementation of those business-process–based projects. We also illustrate these tasks with an example based on Microsoft's sample database business, Adventure Works Cycles.

As Figure 1-1 illustrates, the Business Requirements Definition step is the foundation of the Kimball Lifecycle methodology. Business requirements and their associated business value give you the guidance you need to make decisions in all three downstream tracks. As you'll see, they influence the project scope and plan, too.

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