Business-to-Analytics Canvas - Translation of Product Planning-Related Business Use Cases into Concrete Data Analytics Tasks

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) generate huge amounts of data during the usage phase. By analysing these data, CPS providers can systematically uncover hidden product improvement potentials for future product generations. The successful implementation of such analytics use cases depends to a large extent on whether the stakeholders involved succeed in coordinating their goals and procedures. In particular, product managers and data scientists must come to a common understanding in the context of defining and concretizing the use cases. A common vocabulary is necessary so that the data scientists or those responsible for analysis can determine target-oriented, analysis-capable use cases with which the processing of the data can start quickly and successfully. The research question that arises at this point is: How can business goals or use cases be translated into realizable analytics use cases or tasks? In this paper we present the Busines-to-Analytics Canvas as a result of an action design research approach. It supports the translation of business use cases and goals into concrete data analytics tasks for product planning. By providing various information elements and guiding questions, the canvas helps data scientists translate the business goal into a data analytics approach, i.e., an algorithm class, and gather the necessary information to start processing data.