Understanding the Predictive Analytics Lifecycle

Chapter 2Design and Build

How consultants and project managers design and build modern systems for business analytics

A traditional sumo wrestling match is accompanied by a lot of ceremony and a lot less mawashi. “Mawashi” is the name of the stiff loincloth that wraps around the thighs of formidable sumo wrestlers.

If a wrestler’s mawashi comes completely undone while wrestling, he automatically loses the match. In other words, the heaviest sumo wrestler in the world, with the best plans and tools in the world, with the best intentions in the world, is not guaranteed success. It is the way you do your job, the execution of your ideas, that will make or break the fate of your matches. Sumo wrestling is more than two massive human beings trying to overpower one another. Sumo wrestling is an ancient Shinto tradition, a ritual process with a strict methodology. At the Strategic Consulting Projects Meeting for the Asia Pacific SAS Team Meeting held in Tokyo, Japan, in May 2000, I asked myself, “How do we successfully execute on the four phases of a business integration methodology: manage, plan, deliver, and operate? How do I win the match without my mawashi falling off me?”

Here is the strange part. The question came back to me 10 years later as vice president of Qualex Consulting, one of the oldest SAS integrators in the world.

The four phases of business integration methodology ...