No Shortcuts: Invest in Learning – There’s no Free Lunch

In addition to the natural tendency to assume that you do not to ask for directions, i.e. training or knowledge transfer from experienced people, with today’s economy enterprises have slashed training budgets and often are looking for the cheapest resources.  With respect to the resources, they sometimes assume that as long as the person has used the tool a little then there is not any need to pay the premium for someone who has solid experience and knows how to use it!

Failure to learn the how and what of BI and DW means you are destined to repeat the history of those before you who decided they did not need to ask for directions – late, over-budget projects and failed business expectations.

The good news is you can learn. There are courses offered by consultancies and universities that you can attend. There are several books on the subject (although I dare say a lot of trash too.)

But the most common approach to getting that knowledge is to hire someone as an employee or to get experienced consultants to lead you. If you go the consulting route make sure the actual people assigned to your project have the experience. It does not matter if a consulting company has the experience but rather the actual consultants that are going to work on your project.

For more on this series, see:

• No Shortcuts: Read the BI/DW Instructions and Ask for Directions
• No Shortcuts: Focus on DW/BI Architecture and Processes, then think about the Tools