Data warehouse/business intelligence (DW/BI) teams are increasingly asked to do more, do it quicker, and produce higher quality while doing so.  Data – more accurately the right data in the right format at the right time – is critical for decision makers across your organization. These “decision makers” include both people as well as machine learning (ML) applications, both of whom expect your team to provide high quality data regardless of how it is sourced. Your teams need to learn how to succeed at agile data warehousing and agile business intelligence.

This interactive workshop teaches data professionals a proven approach to building and evolving DW/BI solutions, an approach that is agile, lean, and disciplined. It works through a disciplined, hybrid approach that adopts ways of working (WoW) and ways of thinking (WoT) from agile, lean, and traditional sources.  Students will work through the agile DW/BI lifecycle from beginning to end

What You Will Learn

• • Identify the roles on an Agile DW/BI team
  • Discover how to organize and lead an Agile DW/BI team
  • Understand practical strategies for overcoming common challenges on Agile DW/BI teams
  • Learn to identify the right way of working (WoW) for your team in your context, combining agile, lean, and traditional strategies to do so
  • Understand how to take a sufficient approach to initial requirements modeling, architectural modeling, and planning that fits your context
  • Explore DataOps WoW and see how to apply them in practice
  • Discover how to successfully deliver the first release of your DW/BI solution
  • Learn how to adopt a continuous delivery approach for subsequent releases
  • Explore the risks associated with data technical debt and how to address them
  • Learn how lean governance, including data governance, strategies are required for Agile DW/BI teams to succeed

Logistics

• • Length: 2 days – 12 hours class time (exclusive of breaks)
  • Delivery strategy: On premises

Audience

This workshop is aimed at data professionals who want to learn how to take a disciplined agile approach to building and evolving DW/BI solutions.

Prerequisites

• • An understanding of data and database fundamentals is required. Students are expected to be familiar with basic data terminology and techniques, including the ability to read a data model.
  • An understanding of Agile and Lean concepts is also useful although not required.
  • Knowledge of DataVault2 (DV2) is also useful although not required.

Detailed Outline

Foundational Concepts

• • • Defining DW, BI, Agile, Lean, and Agile DW/BI
    • The Case Study: Introduction

Challenges with Agile Data Warehousing (DW) and Business Intelligence (BI)

• • • Identify what makes it hard to take an Agile approach to DW/BI

Roles on Agile DW/BI Teams 

• • • Primary and supporting roles
    • Responsibilities
    • How to find the right people

Choosing the Right Lifecycle

• • • Comparing traditional, Scrum, and Kanban-based approaches
    • Comparing project and continuous delivery approaches
    • The Agile DW/BI lifecycles

Initial Architecture for Agile DW/BI

• • • Overview of the DV2 architecture strategy
    • Just barely good enough (JBGE) modeling and planning
    • Legacy data source modeling
    • Clean data architecture

Initial Requirements for Agile Data Warehousing (DW) and Business Intelligence (BI)

• • • Question stories
    • Agile data mapping/lineage
    • Agile data modeling
    • Initial sizing and scheduling: Guesstimation

Construction – The first few sprints 

• • • Vertical slicing
    • Clean database design
    • The user-facing BI solution

Overcoming the challenges with sprints 

• • • Look-ahead analysis
    • Look-ahead planning: Sizing and scheduling

DataOps Practices for Development

• • • Database refactoring to pay down data technical debt
    • Automated database testing
    • Continuous database integration
    • Continuous database deployment

Putting it All together: A Typical Construction Sprint 

• • • Lean data governance

Deployment

• • • Database deployment
    • Continuous database deployment

Evolving Your Production DW

• • • From project to product
    • Lean continuous delivery for DW/BI

Wrap Up

• • • Revisiting the challenges with agile and DW

Note: “Disciplined Agile” is a registered mark, and “DA” a mark, of Project Management Institute, Inc.