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Decision Support Project Request Process (DRAFT)

Decision Support Project Request Process (DRAFT)

Owned by vjones (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 18, 2015

Definition

This process is required for any Decision Support (Data Warehouse and/or Business Intelligence) projects that will require over 80 hours of work.

Project Life Cycle Approval Framework

All Decision Support Projects will follow the Project Life Cycle Approval Framework.

Prerequisites for Project Approval

Project Requests

All project requests will be entered into Service Now, and will use the Service Now Project Approval Workflow

Project Plan

A project plan listing high-level milestones and estimated completion dates.

Resource Allocations

Before commencement of each project, resources need to be allocated for the following roles:

  • Project Lead - Develops and maintains project plan, coordinates efforts across each team involved
  • Subject Matter Expert(s) - One subject matter expert per subject area, these resources are typically provided by the functional office responsible for the business processes
  • Business Analyst - Develops functional and/or technical requirements
  • Data Warehouse Architect - Designs data model and technical specifications documents
  • Extract Transform Load (ETL) Developer - Develops data integration (ETL) processes to load and transform data from the source system into the data warehouse
  • Cognos Framework Developer - Creates Cognos packages used for ad-hoc reporting as well as predefined (canned) reports for end users
  • Report Developer - Develops predefined (canned) reports for end users
  • Production Control Lead - Coordinates nightly schedules for data warehouse loads, production turnover requests for both reports and ETL mappings
  • Quality Assurance (QA) Lead - Develops QA documentation (test plans), leads QA process for the project
  • Unit Tester(s) - Develops unit tests for ETL, Cognos Frameworks and Reports
  • User Acceptance Testers - Validates that the data, reports and Cognos packages meet functional requirements. Usually the end users of the reports and Cognos packages.

One resource could fill multiple roles. For example, the Project Lead could also be the QA lead.

 

Standard Project Deliverables

All completed Decision Support projects will deliver all milestones listed in the project plan, including:

Documentation

  • Functional Reporting Requirements for
    • Ad hoc reports
    • Operational reports
    • Analytical reports/Dashboards
  • Technical Reporting Requirements
  • Data Model
  • Data Lineage (ETL) Specifications
  • Test plans for unit and user acceptance testing for System Integration Testing, ETL testing, and Cognos testing of reports and framework packages
  • Service Level Agreement

Technical

All deliverables defined in the functional reporting requirements including:

  • Subject Area Data Mart (Data Warehouse) - populated with data from source systems as defined in the data lineage (ETL) specifications
  • Cognos Framework Packages (for ad hoc reporting)
  • Cognos Reports
  • Cognos Dashboards
  • Integration with ZotPortal