Effectiveness of Agile Implementation Methods in Business Intelligence Projects from End-User Perspective

Abstract

The global Business Intelligence (BI) market grew by 10% in 2013 according to the Gartner Report. BI has been the top implementation priority for organizations for many years now. Today organizations require better use of data and analytics to support their business decisions. Internet power and business trend changes have provided a broad term - Big Data. To be able to handle it and leverage a value of having access to Big Data, organizations have no other choice than to get proper systems implemented and working. However traditional methods are not efficient for changing business needs. Long time between project start and go-live causes a gap between initial solution blueprint and actual user requirements in the end of the project. This article presents the latest market trends in BI systems implementation by comparing Agile with traditional methods. It presents a case study provided in a large telecommunications company (20K employees) and the results of a pilot research provided in the three large companies telecommunications, digital and insurance. Both studies prove that Agile methods might be more effective in BI projects from an end-user perspective and give first results and added value in a much shorter time compared to a traditional approach. Organizations often do not have a clear vision of BI requirements. Thus users ask for changes just before a BI product readiness, which Agile ensures in contradiction to traditional methods.