Things to Consider Objectives Are the objectives for this prototype clear? Do we know what kind of prototype we want to build? Have we developed a prototype in the past? If we have, what was our experience? What lessons did we learn? How will the business people benefit from prototyping this BI application? How will the organization benefit? Scope and Schedule What is the scope of the prototype? How will we manage scope changes? How much time do we have for this prototype? How many versions (iterations) of the prototype are we planning to create before starting real development work? How will we time-box prototype activities? By version? By activity? By deliverable ? Deliverables Are the requirements clear about the prototype deliverables? What reports do the business people expect from the BI application? Will we prototype all of those reports ? If not, which ones? What queries will the business analysts write against the BI target databases? Which of these queries should we prototype? Are any business analysts currently using spreadsheets to satisfy their query needs? Will the prototype include reports to replace all those spreadsheets? What data do we need for the prototype database? Will a BI application interface be required? If so, are we prototyping it? For how many business people? What do they have now? Are we going to include a Web front end in the prototype? Business Participation Who will use the BI application? How many of those business people will be involved with the prototype? Where are the business people located? How will they connect to the BI application? By local area network (LAN)? By wide area network (WAN)? Through the intranet? Have we worked with these business people in the past? What types of technical skills do they have? What technical skills are needed to participate in the prototype? How much will they participate in this prototype? Hands-on, full-time involvement? Occasional demo reviews only? Tools and Methods What tools will we use to develop the prototype? Will we use the same tools to develop the final BI application? How will lessons learned be communicated to the extract/transform/load (ETL) team? |