Healthcheck

Make your Data work to support data-driven and insights-inspired business decisions

An AI and Business Intelligence Healthcheck provides a vision of your organization’s potential and capability for working with data, and a strategic roadmap that can help to deliver self-service business intelligence and analytics across the enterprise. The Healthcheck forms the start of imbuing a data culture within the organization, while delivering business-defined value.

  • Review of the existing Business Intelligence and Analytics estate in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks, with a focus on utilizing a single system.
  • ‘To be’ proposed technical architecture and data architecture to frame options for your organisation to review - we will do the legwork!
  • Technology comparison matrix with recommendations a sample showcase where possible
  • Sample costs with licensing options for different technologies
  • A comparison technology matrix of the proposed technologies involved
  • Pros and cons of different data storage options, including Big Data and Little Data
  • Training Plan, including a Review and Gap Analysis of skill sets for the various proposed technologies
  • ‘Q & A’ Presentation to key stakeholders to feedback findings, and provide team members with the opportunity to ask questions

The output of the Business Intelligence Health Check will be a Business Intelligence blueprint which will assess both business and technological perspectives of your current solution, with a focus on a forward-thinking business intelligence architecture which considers industry trends as well as the business requirements.

Here are some sample business intelligence agenda items with an associated timeline:

  • Data Platform current view and future vision (2 days)
  • Recommended Business Intelligence methodology to handle blending data sources (1 day)
  • Technology Review including costs, licenses and options (2 days)
  • Future Technology roadmap (1 day)
  • High-level Skills Matrix and Training Plan (1 day)
  • develop a strategic vision of the role of data in your organization.
  • design a credible roadmap and a compass to make the most of data for the business
  • support a sustainable data culture to provide a compass to help direct ethics.
  • give you a jumpstart to a set of initial deliverables to help you to prioritize.
  • generate velocity towards your new data future to obtain a single version of the truth
  • distinguish new opportunities with data to help provide sustainable, long-term results.
The first step is to review current processes within the business for data acquisition, data governance, data ethics, and data quality. Then, the focus moves on creating a data journey for your business that allows for growth in data culture, and innovation is essential for success. Therefore, at Data Relish, we follow established international standards using the DAMA-DMBoK (Data Management Book of Knowledge) for the Data Strategy service.
Each strategy is unique, but it broadly follows a set of data principles:
  • Delivering support to the business vision, objectives, and priorities using data.
  • Collaborating to produce an IT Requirements & Technology Plan
  • High-level technical architecture and data architecture to reconcile IT requirements with business requirements
  • Devising a Business Case
  • Planning data ownership and data governance review in line with a data lifecycle
  • Designing Roles & Responsibilities aimed at agile delivery using a RACI / FRACI approach to produce a training plan for your teams, including data literacy
  • Technology matrix to compare and contrast different technology choices to facilitate your technology choice.

Data Strategy

Make Your Data Work to support data-driven and insights-inspired business decisions

A Data Strategy will facilitate informed data-driven business decisions. This develops and advances a data culture embedded within the organization, while delivering business-defined value.

Data Modelling

Make Your Data Work with Business-Centred Data Modelling

Data understanding is converted into appropriate conceptual and logical models. The organization could aim towards having one set of integrated data assets, with a range of emphasis from operational reporting through to slice & dice, predictive models and dashboards.

In order to enforce the growth of the data architecture in alignment with the business intelligence strategy, Data Relish offers a range of business-oriented data modelling methodologies such as Data Vault or Kimball Data Modelling. Business requirements are set out using the BEAM modelling process created by Laurence Corr.   Often, an appropriate data modelling tool is required which supports the creation, maintenance, re-use, versioning and collaboration of data model maps, which can easily be linked and subsetted, collectively describing the enterprise data model. At Data Relish, we like the Ellie data modelling tool, but there are others. We have also used plain Visio previously. A Data Model will:
  • Represent data accurately to produce reliable, robust reports that are correct
  • Verify Data definitions at the conceptual, logical and physical levels
  • Define the primary and foreign keys, relational tables and stored procedures

Data modeling allows you to conceptually represent the data. The model clarifies the association between data objects and rules, and sets it out in a business-friendly fashion. Data modeling can also be used to extract models from existing systems. Data modelling is conducted as a key part of data architecture, which can then be translated into technologies such as Microsoft’s Power BI, Analysis Services, or Tableau calculations.

The output of the Data Modelling process is a business-friendly conceptual, logical and physical model that accurately captures the business entities and relationships in the data.

At Data Relish, we follow established international standards using the DAMA-DMBoK (Data Management Book of Knowledge) for the Data Strategy service.

Based on business priorities, business metrics could be developed in two-week sprints to build iterative success over a period of time. The sprints could appear as follows:
  • Select business metric from the backlog
  • Extract data from the source
  • Link records through keys
  • Logically model any new entities/attributes
  • Power BI Build
  • Formal Testing
  • Defect fix where necessary but the testing strategy should reduce error at this point
We want to support your business to:
  • delivering customized training and consultancy as and when required
  • building actionable dashboards using data that is the intellectual property of your organisation.
  • ‘Q & A’ Presentation to key stakeholders to feedback findings, and provide team members with the opportunity to ask questions

The brief is to help your organisation to be successful with your data. The focus will be on best practices in data architecture and data visualization, with the objective of helping your data to have a sustainable impact. There is a focus on longevity and reduction of technical debt by ingesting, shaping, cleaning and visualizing data with respect to the foundation of established data architecture frameworks as a target.

The activities will use Microsoft technologies such as AI, Tableau and/or Power BI. The work involves preparation, onsite work, and post-site work such as handover, documentation and follow-up questions.

We are available remotely during the GMT and PST Time zones for calls, and these can take place over the weekend as well as normal working hours. We recognize that time is short, and we are keen to maximize the success of the project.

Build

Power BI and Tableau Consulting

Dashboards, reports and data visualisations provide a range of information, from quick insights into the state of the business to in-depth, predictive analytics. Our Principal, Jen Stirrup, has authored a number of books on Tableau as well as delivered reporting assets for organizations such as the NHS, the University of Bristol and various UK Government departments.

Expert Witness

The overriding duty as an expert is to the Court. In this capacity, Jen Stirrup will provide an unbiased opinion as an independent witness in relation to those matters which are within her expertise, such as IT consultancy, delivering Artificial Intelligence projects, Business Intelligence projects, data-based products, training material production and related work. The work which is carried out in relation to this retainer is her own and it will not be delegated or subcontracted.

If there is an actual or potential conflict of interest in accepting the Expert Witness retainer, whether financial, personal or professional, please be assured that Jennifer Stirrup will notify the relevant people without delay.

  • Expert reports
  • Giving oral evidence
  • Attending the trial
  • Participating in interviews
  • Hot-tubbing - the court has the power to order experts to give evidence concurrently at trial on an issue-by-issue basis or as directed by the Judge

Please get in touch for further information and a confidential discussion.