According
to David Wells, a principle analyst at the firm Ovum, large data warehousing projects
carry a high risk, but a federated data mart approach can reduce failure rates and improve
efficiencies.
Wells says that failure rates run up to 70% on projects that often cost millions and
take years to implement. He believes that most projects that fail do so for organizational
rather than technological reasons.
With the advent of data mart tool kits in the last few years, the large projects can be
broken down into smaller federated operations. That increases the likelihood for success
at the same time as it may decrease the overall costs.
WALLY'S COMMENT ... This is a variation on a theme that I heard Tom Peters state
several years back "...it's very hard for anything big to get anything done."
If you're in a large organization, be very, very leery of super-big, super-large
projects extending across an entire organization and taking a long time. They almost never
work. Come to think of it, they hardly ever work in smaller organizations, either. If you
must do a large project, break it down into lots of smaller projects.
A combination of Net/Web technology and changed leadership thinking are leading us to
ways to put multiple smaller projects together. The smaller projects can be tailored,
shaped, and driven by needs close to the front line, and pick up energy from local players
because of that.
An excellent example of how this can work is the Eli Lilly Intranet. The Net for this
huge, world-wide company is managed by a very small staff. Why? Because it's driven and
run primarily by local users. The core technology staff is responsible for setting some
basic standards and for helping local units make technological choices.
Another company who seems to have done that well is IBM. They've developed what they
call a "no excuses toolkit" which sets out standards for Web publishing for IBM
units. This gives IBM something of the best of both worlds. It encourages local freedom to
publish and to make decisions driven by local and specific market conditions. It also
makes possible a common look and feel for IBM projects regardless of country or market.
Now, what if you're a small organization? Then I think there are two learning points
here. First, big projects are best done in small pieces. Get one done, move ahead.
The second learning point relates to data warehousing. The idea of bringing data all
together so you can see relationships and use it in various applications is not something
that's limited to large companies with huge budgets. That basic principle can drive a
variety of projects in the small to mid-sized organization. Buy the concept, not
necessarily the software and make the idea of data warehousing work for you.
This material originally appeared in Wally Bock’s Briefing Memo Newsletter of 15
June 1998.
Reviewed: 2/15/03
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