Front End First: A Fresh Approach to Building BI Solutions

How is increasing demand for Big Data and Real Time Analytics and powerful in-memory visualization tools with extensive backend capabilities to do quick and easy data integration impacting roles for business users, analysts and IT developers? What are the many factors being impacted and how can we be effective change agents? Self-service Business Intelligence (BI) has been the holy grail of Business Intelligence for years yet has largely been an unfulfilled aspiration. How can we use technology to bridge the gap between business users and IT to deliver solutions they really want in days and weeks instead of months and years without sacrificing our data management goals? I will share lessons learned on how to implement successful, cost-effective BI solutions within the context of a resilient data architecture framework while establishing a collaborative partnership between IT and business users.

BI Developers use tools to deliver data as part of the requirements gathering process so users get immediate access to integrated data
Validate assumptions about scope, requirements, source data and data integration rules for clear requirements
Data quality issues identified collaboratively and process changes can be made
Architects receive clear requirements for scope, usage and performance to determine the best design
Collaboration between business and IT that fosters an atmosphere of mutual understanding, respect and trust

Dr. Patricia Klauer began her career as Doctor of Chiropractic licensed in California and Massachusetts practicing from 1983 – 1987. After working as a systems and database programmer at MIT, MCI and Syntex she spent the next 25 years in the field of large-scale data integration and Business Intelligence solutions for leading fortune 500 financial, telecommunications, manufacturing, and healthcare companies. She specializes in advising executives regarding the impact of technical architecture to support success in their business objectives, designing effective data architecture strategies and developed the ‘Front End First’ methodology for delivering cost effective Business Intelligence Solutions. Dr. Klauer is founder of Eclipse Data Systems and co-author of Building Data Warehouses for Decision Support, published by Prentice Hall.