The primary goal of a Business Intelligence (BI) application is to answer key business questions for end-users while the answers are still relevant to the business. Business Analysts (BA) can reduce the risk of misinterpretation of BI requirements by capturing these business questions, metrics, and dimensions in the requirements phase of a BI project.
The BI Requirements Challenge
A large company with more than 30,000 employees attempted to implement a BI application as a means of shielding end-users from the complexity of its centralized data warehouse. Following the project kick-off, a requirements gathering session was conducted at which the primary business users provided the reporting and analytic needs. Although the requirements appeared to be clear at the time of sign-off, the users' interpretation of the solution was very different from the application that was built.