Scrum and BI project

Perhaps it would be best to start with the outcome the client is looking for, and why they think Scrum is a good means of achieving it.

Hi Rita,

I'm entirely sure I understand the question.

When an organisation decides to use Scrum, they are sort of missing the point. Scrum is a framework leveraged by teams to deliver complex products. The team need to choose to use Scrum (or not, it isn't a silver bullet).

Consider what value will look like, then you can begin to identify accountabilities and start doing some work to produce a done increment. It sounds like you are talking about doing a lot of work upfront regarding KPIs and dimensions. Remember that Scrum is an empirical framework - we learn by doing, not solely by planning.

*not entirely sure I understand the question

Has your organization ever used Scrum before?  Or any type of agile practices? Because your question doesn't indicate a knowledge of agile processes. If you have never used Scrum then you are going to open yourself up to a lot of frustration in your organization. 

I would ask the customer what they mean by "use Scrum".  If they have experience with it and have Scrum Master knowledge, it might be best to ask them to provide a Product Owner and Scrum Master while you provide the Developers.  But the Developers have to be made aware that this is not going to be a "normal" customer engagement and that they need to be ready to adapt their way of working.

I would bet that when you do ask them the answer will be something along delivering small units of work in short fixed durations.  That is what most companies think Scrum is.  This is also a good reason to have individuals from your client involved in the day to day work in order to deliver in the way that they are expecting. 

Thank you all for your answer.

That is what exactly he wants "delivering small units of work in short fixed durations" and accepting change at any level .and yes my organization has never used Scrum before.

okay is there an initialization phase: meeting stakeholders, discovering initial needs, installing products, prototyping, initial Conception we are not gonna deliver anything for the client is it fine !! and then we can start our first sprint (ETL, creating dashboard.. )

Hi Rita,

From my experience in Business Intelligence and scrum, scrum is often not good approach for such projects. Why? Many BI projects has detailed requirements upfront (tax reporting, other govermental reporting, some corporate executives reporting etc.). There is nothing to discover about product or customers, inspection is not performed to adapt, as law regulations do not allow for any deviations. Also bi technologies are often  limited and closed and do not allow easily to incorporate customers feedback. Do you find your project somewhere there ? Then I suggest to rather go for something different than scrum.

But I also have some positive experience mixing scrum and BI. Is customer really ready to define outcomes not reports, dashboards and charts? Are they also ready to discover with teams Technology limitations and find different way to fulfill their goals (for instance defining good outcome oriented sprint goals). If you are somewhere there then scrum is really good to build company's competetiveness. Hovewer the second situation is rare in BI field.