Nontechnical Infrastructure Evaluation Activities

The nontechnical infrastructure activities need to be performed linearly, as indicated in Figure 2.11. The list below briefly describes the activities associated with Step 2, Section B, Nontechnical Infrastructure Evaluation.

1. Assess the effectiveness of existing nontechnical infrastructure components .

   The policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards, which are all part of the nontechnical infrastructure, exist to assist in the coordination and management of the BI decision-support environment. They should not hinder the project teams or slow them down unnecessarily. Therefore, review the appropriateness and effectiveness of all nontechnical infrastructure components at the beginning of each BI project. Expand, reduce, or revise any inadequate components as necessary.

   • Eliminate unnecessary activities or tasks from the development methodology or add missing activities or tasks .

   • Ensure that naming standards and abbreviations make sense and are comfortable to the business community.

   • Review the logical data modeling and meta data strategies, and ensure that the data administration and meta data administration groups are adequately staffed.

   • Refine the organization's data quality initiative.

   • Examine the testing standards, and ensure that a sufficient amount of reconciliation is being performed.

   • Review the guidelines for SLAs and security.

   Tasks within this activity can be performed concurrently.

2. Write the nontechnical infrastructure assessment report.

   Once you have assessed all the components of the existing nontechnical infrastructure, prepare a report that outlines your findings and gives recommendations for improvement. If there are missing nontechnical infrastructure components, prioritize which ones to include in the next BI project and which ones to defer .

3. Improve the nontechnical infrastructure.

   In the project plan, give time estimates for modifying or improving nontechnical infrastructure components as well as for establishing new components. If the improvements must be completed prior to starting the BI project, create a separate infrastructure project with a separate team and a separate project plan.

Figure 2.11. Nontechnical Infrastructure Evaluation Activities