Week 4 Notes

Lecture Objectives

•  Be able to explain the Monash EIS Method and how it can be used to guide the development of business intelligence applications.

The three main areas in Monash Method are:

1. System planning

2. System Delivery

3. System Use

1. System planning

Initiation

This sits outside the development, and occurs mainly due to some issue or problem, and occurs only once.

• High level objectives are set.
• Executive champion is chosen
• BI application objectives are established
• Initial application is chosen based on whats important and doable

Strategy and resourcing

• Development strategy is chosen, which should preferably be evolutionary.
• Project Manager is chosen, who needs to be jack of all trades, both business and technology.
• Development team is chosen, preferably with BI experience.
• Hardware and Software are chosen, and new tools are learnt.
• Can discuss the technology required surround Business Intelligence (Week 9)

High-level design

• Application requirements are prioritized
• Information required is identified, along with the sources
• General design standards are chose, like the look and feel of the UI
• BI App development plan is developed for the next few iterations
• Can include Dimensional modelling - conceptual (Week 5/6)
• CSFs/BSFs can be used at this stage (Week 7)
• Balanced Scorecard is applicable here also (Week 8)

2. System Delivery

Detailed Design

• EIS capabilites are designed
• Interface and Data Structure is designed
• Can include Dimensional modelling - logical and physical (Week 5/6)
• Designing of UI (Week 10/11) including tables and charts

Construction

• Programming functionality
• Constructing the EIS databases
• Linking the data to the front end
• Designing of UI (Week 10/11) including tables and charts

Testing

• Traditional type of rigorous testing is done
• Also include UI testing, surveys, etc.
• Ensuring that requirements have been met
• Comparison of new reports with old reports

3. System Use

Training

• Training can be done one-on-one, but needs to suits the type of user, e.g. different for executives
• Avoid bloat ware
• Evolutionary training is also important, where it is decided if new applications and reports are developed, whether we need to decide if new training is required.

Operation

• Monitoring the attitudes of users towards the EIS and the usage patterns, to see which reports are being generated and which screens are not being used and need to removed, to avoid bloat ware.

Maintenance and Support

• This involves the function evolution i.e. the user will use the system and will ask for changes to be implemented, and keep the system up-to-date with the business requirement.
• Also involves application evolution, where other departments see the benefits and also ask for something similar, which means new applications need to be designed.