Agile business intelligence describes the use of Agile software implementation for BI solutions to reduce the time required for conventional BI to deliver value to the company and thereby to enable companies to respond quickly to fast-changing market conditions. These solutions typically combine business intelligence (BI) with software engineering (SEO/EDI) and business process (BPI) skills. This combination enables a business to quickly adapt to new market conditions and thus excel in competitive analysis. In essence, Agile Business Intelligence is a methodology that drives sustainable growth and development in an increasingly complex marketplace. As a result, companies that employ Agile methods have a flexible environment for investing in innovation, and thus enjoy significant cost reductions in the long-term.
In recent years, the Internet has increasingly become an essential part of business intelligence methodology. The rapid spread of broadband and other Internet technologies across different regions and cultures has led to an increased demand for online data analysis tools. In addition to traditional business intelligence tools, Agile tools provide access to more complete business intelligence and decision support, which can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer. In this sense, Agile business intelligence is a subset of online data analysis technology.
The core Agile technologies include the following: ALM, ABAP, ACM, CDI, CMS, CDI-based CMS, Dataflow, Epcot Business Portal, Fast Lane, Gantt charting, JAVA, Map/Resolve, OLS, PHAS, Pig/DOE, SOAP, SQL, TSQL, XML, and WSDL. These tools enable business users to analyze enterprise data without requiring the assistance of data analysts, who perform in-depth analysis and business questions. Agile analytical methodologies rely heavily on data logic and code reuse and rely on a continuous feedback cycle between development and deployment. Agile analytics methodology also enables its users to rapidly develop new modules or enhancements that can be deployed immediately. The primary objective of Agile methodologies is to build highly usable and flexible open source software applications that can be extended and customized to fit business needs with minimum effort.
Agile Methodology relies on an adaptive project team approach. This methodology is based on the principle that the scope of a project should change rapidly based upon available information and observations. Each iteration of the project should be managed as a series of small, self-contained, independent units with a clearly defined scope and well defined goal. Within each iteration, the project team should strive to maintain approximately four to five sprints long, incrementally extending the scope of the original idea. This is the essence of Agile Project Management.
Agile differs from the traditional waterfall approach in that the schedule is revised after the fact rather than before it is completed. While this method may seem overly dependent on the designer’s “feel” of what the product or services should look like, it actually works far better for large enterprises that need a large degree of flexibility. Agile business intelligence allows for rapid deployment of new capabilities and requires very few changes or maintenance to existing systems when compared to waterfall methods.
Agile utilizes a combination of advanced analytics and custom programming that provide business users the ability to obtain “the right bi tools” for the job. This includes both traditional and advanced analytics tools that can leverage the power and flexibility of the cloud to deliver the necessary information quickly and efficiently. The Agile Cloud combines the necessary “metrics” to determine the health of your application with the necessary information needed to determine the root cause of problems and make necessary changes. The result provides businesses with a rich array of tools and information that can improve their performance and provide them with greater insight into how to continually drive efficiency and deliver high quality products and services.
The primary advantage of using agile business intelligence is the speed and ease of integration with other applications and external systems. In fact, one of the primary motivations for adopting Agile development is the seamless integration of these various systems and applications. Business users do not have to concern themselves with the technical details of configuring any type of application or tool in an Agile environment as they do not have to worry about writing custom code to accommodate the use of other systems or tools. They simply use the tools that are available to them and rely on the insights provided by these Agile analytics solutions to make the appropriate decisions. Because these analytics solutions run on backend servers maintained by the Agile development team, business users do not have to concern themselves with installing additional reporting or dashboards for their analytical purposes.
In Agile analytics systems, users access data sources via a variety of different interfaces. In order to utilize these data sources effectively, users must keep track of their inputs over time as well as make adjustments to their processes and procedures as their business expands and requires greater depth and detail. These issues are easily resolved by the data collected over time, but if a business does not take care to collect this data or make the proper adjustments when they make modifications to their business practices, they may miss opportunities for increased profits. Agile business intelligence solutions make it much easier for business owners to monitor their business activity across all stages of their operations. The key feature of Agile analytics is that it allows business owners to pull all of this information in a format that is easy to read, understand and process quickly and efficiently. Once a business user has access to all of the information that they need at a glance, it becomes much easier to make quick and appropriate changes to business processes and to make the necessary adjustments to increase profits.