BI Q&A: Raphael Klebanov of WhereScape™ USA on Agile & Current Challenges (Part 1)

This Q&A with Raphael Klebanov highlights the state of BI today. Part 2 highlights the unique advantages of WhereScape RED and Balanced Insight Consensus. You can see his previous guest post here.

Raphael Klebanov is a Lead Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence specialist at WhereScape, Inc. He has more than 15 years of BI experience and expertise in all phases of the delivery lifecycle, from requirements discovery, through design and development, to successful deployment and rollout. A Professional Scrum Master and Certified Data Vault Modeler, Raphael continuously seeks ways to refine and optimize BI delivery.

Balanced Insight: Why is Agile development so important to BI projects today?

Raphael Klebanov:  The main concepts of the Agile development methodology are increasingly important these days because they address specific business intelligence  trends and challenges. For example, the huge amount of data available today – both structured and unstructured – requires a “divide and conquer” approach to data warehouse and BI projects as well as engaging across the functions and departments of organizations.

There is also a strong predisposition and current trend for BI to expand beyond “C-level” business users and reach “floor operators.” In other words, more types of managers and workers need BI to do their jobs and make decisions. Supporting these users is impossible without implementing Agile concepts. For example, thorough testing of apps is necessary to ensure quality and standardization. Clear and comprehensive definitions of key terms and business rules are another element that must be mastered up front.

Lastly, the consolidation tendency in the market is impossible to support without involving business people as early and as often as possible in the development process to minimize the risk of data warehouse (DW) and BI efforts and projects.

Balanced Insight: In your view, what have been the most important technology advancements in BI in last few years?

Raphael Klebanov: Honestly, it is hard to choose between been several quite impressive technological advancements in BI. Certainly, mobile business intelligence is among the hottest topics in the industry, because mobile access to data becomes a critical tool for real-time decision-making.

Although the concept of mobile BI has been around for about a decade, it has achieved rapid growth only very recently, within last three to five years, thanks to the explosion of smartphones and tablet devices and the general move away from a “wired world.” BI has naturally gravitated toward the new realm of mobile computing.

Balanced Insight: In general, how well does the industry understand the difference in purpose and goals between data warehouses and data marts, or BI apps?

Raphael Klebanov: More and more people in the business community understand the importance of the DW and BI; however, their understanding is often lopsided. Business users generally conceive of BI as computer-based techniques used in recognizing and analyzing business data for decision-making in the organization. Most business users view data warehousing as more of a “black box,” something behind the curtain that supports their cool dashboards and report graphs.

Unfortunately, it’s not well or broadly understood by business users how to use BI properly and make the most of their investments. In some cases, they think of BI as a report writer application, as opposed to a truly “intelligent” system. Most of the education for business users embarking on BI project focuses on various types and structures of the DW backend supporting their presentation layer. That is why WhereScape® RED and 3D products that automate and safeguard the DW/BI effort became so in-demand.

Balanced Insight: What are the biggest day-to-day challenges your customers face in their BI projects?

Raphael Klebanov: There are few common challenges that I meet with on DW/BI projects for clients. In my opinion, the main ones are disengagement from business representatives and sponsors that often results from the lack of results and feedback from DW/BI development team. IT folks working with DW/BI projects do not understand the concept of quick, iterative releases of developed apps and getting immediate feedback from business users. This feedback is the only way to keep important BI projects buzzing and moving toward the right goal.

Another huge challenge is the widespread lack of standardization in definitions, business rules, and data dictionaries across the organization and functions provided by metadata. A DW/BI project is very different in this aspect from other software development projects because the decision-makers come from different departments and different levels will not be able to analyze data consistently without enterprise-wide data governance. In addition, the absence of strong governance of DW/BI projects causes, in many cases, organizations to ignore any kind of ordering or strong organization in development (e.g. breaking down user stories into manageable chunks).

Lastly, the shortage of skilled and available staff, both in development and business communities, is an issue. There are never enough folks fully informed about the theory and practice of Agile development – people that are fully capable of organizing themselves in highly effective and enthusiastic teams. We always hope to see valuable and experienced in-house staff, but those are often too difficult to find due to complicated politics or other conflicts. That’s why, when BI projects go wrong, there is often a hunt for scapegoats, while the underlying issue is related to finding skilled resources and allowing them to collaborate to bring value to the organization.

Balanced Insight: There seems to be real momentum toward user-led and business driven BI delivery, though some organizations struggle to adopt. How can DW/BI practitioners help facilitate user engagement and a more efficient, productive and iterative approach?

Raphael Klebanov: It is necessary to convince the business community (since they own the DW/BI projects) to implement projects in the best way. And that means ensuring they understand the methodology, how it works and how it produces value. I believe the answer is in education, which should start with the teaching of Agile development methodologies. There are many seminars, books, and forums available, but by far the most effective approach I’ve found is face-to-face sessions, perhaps a day long, where an EDW/BI practitioner addresses core challenges, specific to user needs and individual companies. Along with the sharing of success stories, very specific conversations and training for business users is a good way to make them take Agile BI seriously.

After some basic education is complete, another best practice is to build a joint team of business SMEs and technologists or BI practitioners for development and implementation. True BI success only comes from strong collaboration between the two. An EDW/BI practitioner can also facilitate the work of the team. The bottom line is you have to establish deep trust in the relationship between business users and the IT/BI team, because without it, project failure is almost guaranteed.

Balanced Insight: Looking ahead, where do you think the biggest opportunities lie for BI practitioners?

Raphael Klebanov: Personally, I am fascinated by the function of BI within predictive analytics. Predictive analytics includes a score of investigative techniques based on modeling, data discoveries, and strategic concepts that evaluate current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.

The core of predictive analytics is in understanding relationships between current data elements in their historical prospective and applying that insight, along with necessary assumptions, to predict future results. An example could be currently implemented assortment of scoring, forecasting and predictive models. When we ultimately learn to feed actual data back into predictive analysis systems and adjust outcomes, it will be one of the most powerful applications of BI for business users. That is the future.

 

For more information on WhereScape RED, please visit WhereScape.com or reach out to Raphael (Email: rklebanov@wherescape.com; Skype: Raphael_ws; Mobile: (303) 968-0703).