This project is based on the increasing data handling capacity of the company. The aim of the project is to develop a system that will collect, store, process, and report data handled by the company. The system will be developed in order to process data and produce reports which are aligned to the business strategy of the company.

1.2 Background of the company

This is a data collection and analysis company that has been operating in the market for less than 2 years. However, the company’s performance has grown and its data handling capacity is expected to grow by 20% every year. Therefore, the company requires a system that will handle its data beyond its normal relational databases. The aim of the project is to create a data warehouse that will replace the current ten data terabyte warehouse. The data warehouse will have business intelligence features which will allow the company to process its raw data and produce the required reports. The Information Technology (IT) role of the project is to create an information system that will integrate the operations of the company through a central data repository that will enable collection, analysis and reporting of data.

1.3 Scope

1.3.1 Scope of the project

The scope of the project is to create a data warehouse that will be aligned to the strategic objectives of the company. The data warehouse will be planned, analyzed, designed, developed and implemented within the given timeframe. The scope of the project is plan, design, construct and implement a data warehouse for the company. The data warehouse will meet all the required standards and processing needs of the company.

1.3.2 Constraints

There are various constraints that will be involved during the project. These constraints include:

· The project is under a fixed and strict timeline and the company expects the data warehouse to be delivered within the set timeframe.

· The entire project must comply with all the industry and legal requirements.

· The whole project is dependent on the ability tom secure the relevant and experienced staff.

· The cost of the project is fixed and the company is not ready to provide any additional funds.

· The company’s staff must be ready to work with the new system after implementation.

1.3.3 Assumptions

The whole project will be based on the following assumptions:

· The development of the data warehouse will be completed within one year as expected by the company.

· The data warehouse will not exceed that budgeted cost.

· The data warehouse will meet the expectations of all the stakeholders of the company.

· All the security features of the data warehouse will be functioning as expected so as to protect the company’s data.

· The data warehouse will be aligned to the strategic objectives of the company.

· The data warehouse will comply with all the standards and legal requirements of the industry.

1.3.4 Risks

The development of the data warehouse might be exposed to the following risks:

· There might be delays and disruptions on the project which might make the project team fail to deliver the data warehouse within one year.

· The project may lack enough experienced staff to enable successful construction and implementation.

· New demands may creep in and change the scope of the project.

· The costs of the project might be overrun due to changing requirements and scope.

· The developed data warehouse may fail to meet all the expectations of the stakeholders.

· There are no funds put in place to facilitate operation and evolution of the data warehouse after it has been implemented.

1.3.5 Control of the scope

The scope of the project will be controlled in order to enable the delivery of the data warehouse within the required limitations and to ensure that the project does not deviate from the original course (Taylor & Bernstein, 2009). The scope of the project will be controlled through:

· Mechanisms of identifying any possible threats to the project and mitigating the risks early.

· Using the work breakdown structure to break the project into manageable phases.

· Setting checkpoints at each milestone of the project.

· Identification and dealing with any deviation from the project requirements on time.

1.4 The relationship and integration between systems and infrastructure

The data warehouse will consist of different system components that will be integrated together to form a complete system. The backend will consist of the data marts, operational data store and the staging area. The front end of the data warehouse will consist of BI and data analytics, and a web portal.

The staging area will provide an intermediate data storage. The operational data store provides the area for data processing within the data warehouse. The data marts will generate the required reports. They will be used for sharing, reporting, and delivery of data as required.

1.5 The potential outsourcing or offshoring needs

There are some of the company’s activities which might be outsourced and offshored to other countries in order to reduce the costs of developing the system (Rivard & Aubert, 2008). The activities which might be offshored include software development, data backup, and hosting services.

1.6 The necessary resources including staffing

The resources required for this project include hardware, software, and staff. The development of the data warehouse will need hardware and software components. In addition, in must have the necessary and experienced staff including the security analyst, enterprise architect, web portal administrator, project manager, BI administrator, data modeler and database administrator, and an advisory committee. All these people will work together to ensure that the data warehouse will meet the business and technical requirements of the company.

References

Chou, J., & Tseng, H. (2011). Establishing Expert System For Prediction Based On The Project-oriented Data Warehouse. Expert Systems with Applications, 38(1), 640-651.

Rivard, S., & Aubert, B. A. (2008). Information technology outsourcing. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Taylor, J. E., & Bernstein, P. G. (2009). Paradigm Trajectories Of Building Information Modeling Practice In Project Networks. Journal of Management in Engineering, 25(2), 69.