I have a new job title: Business Intelligence Lead
I have a first assignment: Clean up the garbage fire left behind by my predecessor. Who hired me almost three years ago, and who was doing a lot of work in undocumented excel sheets. Like, figuring out how to do a million dollars in payments in Excel.
We don't have user stories. We don't have requirements. We don't have documentation. We don't have a transition plan. The tasks don't have identified clients. The folks who we think are the clients don't have time to meet with us.
In addition, any reporting that was out of Excel was done in a BI tool that no one still at the company is particularly skilled at. The two people who know it well left at the same time. It's not so much a garbage fire, but is smoldering and could erupt at any time.
What we do have: Essentially as many south american DBAs as we need, a VP who'll act as management and project management cover, a CIO who knows his stuff and has the ability to hire and shift people around, and a brand-new BI Lead who thinks scrum is a really neat idea.
Are we doooomed?
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I mean ... it seems like you need to make some choices that are not clear-cut (like "What BI tool will we standardize on?") and then commit to them.
ReplyDeleteSo, from a certain point of view ... I guess that's "doooomed"? Certainly I know that folks in business can be uncomfortable doing that.
At least it's Excel and not Access...
ReplyDeleteIsaac Kuo There is most def some access, luckily only as an ODBC front end to SQL tables.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Long-term, we know the BI solution. We're continuing to build out the team of DBAs in SA, with centralized solutions and datawarehouses that can easily talk to each other.
ReplyDeleteI think the business will be happy so long as we provide everything they are used to, and a boatload more. For cheaper.
And, well, I think we can. If we get away from excel tables and to modernized reporting systems, then it should be doable. A major problem is getting time with the clients, but the VP (one I actually like) will ensure they know the current state and what we need from them to be successful.
Seems like you are set for a restart. The people you've got sound perfect for the job.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: Does that involve choosing (for instance) what sort of a DB architecture you want to build things on? It seems like there are choices to be made there, among various options that would each do the job. I'm probably misunderstanding, though.
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