Iteration 0: Initiation

Project BI Lab initiation. In true Agile spirit.

I've worked in BI and DW all of my career in one form or another. There's a lot to this area. From database development and architecture to ETL design to data architecture and modeling to front end BI development. And I left several things out. To be successful in this space takes a certain amount of luck of which I have been the beneficiary. Luck to have the opportunities to build skills in all these different areas. This didn't happen because I am necessarily good or talented but an opportunist at heart that devoted a great deal of time for many years to learn and grow. The most important and influential years of my career have been spent at the database level. That's where I get most excited. You may notice this bias coming through in my writings. Foundational level design is paramount to all upstream technology.

I've had the privilege of working in this space across several industries - insurance, retail, manufacturing, finance, media, pharmacy - and now in Higher Education. I'd been told how different Higher Education is. It's not. At least not from a technical perspective. The modeling challenges are the same, just the data are different. A NULL is still a NULL and has certain ways of being handled. Multivalued dimensions are handled the same whether in manufacturing or Higher Ed. But where Higher Ed differentiates itself from private industry is in culture. This is important and provides a great opportunity to build a truly sustainable BI program specifically around program level initiatives like Data Governance, building a BI Competency Center or Center of Excellence, strong IT and community partnership, and collaborative strategic planning.

The goal of this blog is simple. To use the experiences of a small New England Liberal Arts College's embarkment into building a Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Program from ground up as the backdrop for topics that are common across most of these projects with a specific focus to the Higher Ed community. Those topics will span technical to more program and business level.

I hope it provides value to someone, somewhere. And I look forward to, and encourage, mutual growth, sharing, and collaboration both on and offline.