Why Do Projects Fail?

Industry research reveals that most data integration initiatives fail. Common problems include:

• Late delivery and over budget

• Poor performance of queries and loads
• Unacceptable data quality for accurate analytics and reporting
• False starts, potentially resulting in complete rework

Why does this happen? Can it be prevented? These are the type questions we think deserve your utmost consideration before you begin a large-scale initiative, or attempt to rework an existing solution. Based upon our significant experience working in this market, we believe one of the key issues underlying all these problems is an overall lack of planning. With this in mind, Myers-Holum has developed an Assessment and Strategic Planning offering to address this need.

Our Approach to the Problem

Our typical structured approach includes four phases, as follows: 

• Prepare – During this phase the approach, scope, deliverables and timelines for the assessment are defined and approved.  The team members, both from Myers-Holum and the customer would be identified.  Other pre-projects activities such as scheduling of interviews and organization of a team kick-off meeting help ensure a highly successful engagement.
   

• Discover – During this phase the team focuses on establishing a solid understanding of the current environment and the business drivers and objectives this environment must support.  This process is based on both a review of existing technical documentation and interviews with both technical and business staff. It is important to identify the key business personnel who can help us determine the business strategies, key initiatives and budgets.
   

• Analyze – During this phase the team will identify the gaps that exist in the various components—technical, system, data and business process—of the environment.  The type of assessment will determine the extent that each component will be analyzed.  It is also during this phase that the team will begin to evaluate various solution options for filling the gaps that have been identified.
   

• Synthesize – During this phase the team will formalize the solution recommendations.  At this point, members of the team will begin preparing the best approach for laying out the solutions into an iterative deployment strategy.  Once this strategy has been defined, appropriate project plans – schedules and budgets – are developed.  Additionally, the business benefit or ROI for each iteration will also be identified.

Client Deliverables

Typical deliverables from this type of engagement can include one or more of the following:

• Findings and Recommendations

• Architecture diagram of ‘Future-State’ vision, including:
  - Data Architecture
    > Conceptual, logical and physical data models
    > Partitioning
    > Real-Time Load Dependencies
  - Technical Architecture
    > Hardware
    > Software
    > Operating systems
    > Storage
    > Network
  - Data Integration Architecture
    > Data movement from source to target
    > Transformations
    > Data Quality
    > Data Cleansing
    > Balance & controls
  - BI Architecture
    > Reporting
    > Decision Support
    > OLAP

• Business Justification and Range of Magnitude (ROM) budget

• Organizational Model

• High level initiatives / projects to deliver ‘Future State’ solution

• Defined technology platform

• Roadmap of prioritized projects / timeline