Agile Data Warehousing: Delivering World-Class Business Intelligence Systems Using Scrum and XP [Paperback]

Ralph Hughes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2008

Rarely does a consulting firm gather its expertise on a subject, especially knowledge as valuable as rapid data warehousing, and place it in a book. This volume distills more than ten years of research conducted at Ceregenics, Inc., on creating development teams that can quickly and effectively develop business intelligence applications. Given that building and deploying data warehouses can cost millions, Agile Data Warehousing not only offers practitioners financial savings but also shortens delivery times and improves application quality. The Agile movement has yielded exciting innovations for "maximizing the work not done" in software engineering. Generally, however, the movement offers only high-level approaches geared more for data capture systems than for data management applications.With Agile Data Warehousing, Ceregenics adapts generic Scrum and XP for data warehousing, grooms them into a single, bona fide development method, and demonstrates that the results can pass formal methodological evaluations such as those found in SEI's Capability Maturity Model.Featured is a six-stage plan for launching Agile warehouse projects that guides data applications professionals step-by-step in becoming a world-class development team. It also describes how to avoid resistance and repair turmoil that introducing a radical method can cause, even for a Fortune 500 company with a skeptical information systems department grounded in traditional project management techniques.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ralph Hughes, MA, chief systems architect for Ceregenics, Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and PMI project management professional (PMP), has built data warehouses since 1982. Fluent in French, he works internationally, leading Agile projects for Fortune 500 companies in aerospace, telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals. He lives in Denver, Colorado, and skis and fly fishes between projects.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595471676
• ISBN-13: 978-0595471676
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > Data Warehousing

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "how to" book on agile data warehousing, September 15, 2008

By 

W. N. Mccrosky "Bill McCrosky" (Heathsville, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Agile Data Warehousing: Delivering World-Class Business Intelligence Systems Using Scrum and XP (Paperback)

This book brings together a lot of ideas about agile DW that have only been touched on in other books and journals. It is an excellent 'how to' book for anyone interested in introducing agility to the decidedly 'waterfall' world of mainstream BI practices and methods. The book goes beyond being an agile polemic by providing deep thinking and research supporting the practice of agile BI.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Self-published and it shows, January 11, 2011

By 

Jason Yip (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Agile Data Warehousing: Delivering World-Class Business Intelligence Systems Using Scrum and XP (Kindle Edition)

I picked this up based on a recommendation from a work colleague and I don't understand why he recommended it. I found this difficult to read due to poor choice of vocabulary and lack of logical message structure. I found too many sections to be about introductory Agile concepts rather than specialised Data Warehouse / BI issues so I ended up spending a lot of time skimming.

Formatting for the Kindle was very poor and many figures are not understandable.

There are also a number of cutesy acronyms based on Ceregenic's specific approach that I just found distracting.

I have a very strong suspicion that the interesting parts of this book could be better communicated as tightly copy-edited articles or blog posts. Nothing really came out to me as particularly insightful but given that I drifted into skimming, I may possibly have missed something buried in the noise.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well-written, sure-footed guide to implementing Scrum for Data Warehousing projects!, November 16, 2010

By 

BI Meister - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agile Data Warehousing: Delivering World-Class Business Intelligence Systems Using Scrum and XP (Paperback)

I found this to be an outstanding, insightful guide for adopting Agile/Scrum methodology to Data Warehouse projects. Mr. Hughes' book takes the reader through the core tenets of Scrum and starting an Agile Data Warehousing team, to practical sure-footed steps and examples in the use of User Stories and story estimation, to DW-specific development task decomposition and estimation, and through the dynamics of the agile-iterative process. The book then delivers great insights around scaling DW-Scrum teams, testing approaches, process improvement and CMMI compliance. It is very well-written, absolutely well worth the read and is a great TEAM reference book for launching Agile/Scrum Data Warehouse development programs/teams (as well as an excellent guide for improving existing Agile DW teams)... Nice job!