In the previous post, we took a look at the solution CAST brought to our challenges and how good those solutions were in bringing real benefit to the organization. Here, we will take a look at some of the other things we didn’t do (for one reason or another) that we could have to reap even more return on our investment.
Extending the Benefits
As I said, there are a few things that could have been done with CAST and its features that we did not take advantage of. For instance, I would have included the quality metrics in the vendor’s statements of work. That is, putting into the contract a section that said, “If you deliver software, these are the metrics we will use to measure the quality of that software, and if it doesn’t meet the criteria, you will either fix it, or explain the reason why not to our satisfaction.” That alone would solve a lot of commercial arguments and out-of-warrantee charges. Another thing I would do is include CAST into source project lifecycle, making its impact-analysis feature a part of the feasibility study. This would help to ensure that we caught all the platform changes the project would need to manage. This would have significantly reduced the number of extra charges brought by the vendors due to otherwise unforeseen impacts. I also would have promoted the CAST Dashboard to the rest of the business to prove to them that we had a good handle on our data warehouse. The dashboard provides a great overview of the state of your platform from a technical components point of view. Showing the other business areas that you are improving the quality of the data warehouse now and how you will improve it in the future allows you to maintain a cooperative dialog with the other business areas and helps keep you honest and open.
Again, to know more about CAST, contact the vendor. As well, you can always ask me questions in the comments below.