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Business Intelligence (BI) is widely used to make it possible to gain insight into data such that good decisions can be made. Typically, the development process for a BI project is based on the waterfall model which handles requirement specification, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance in strictly separated phases. Therefore, it takes a long time before a newly launched BI project can be put into production. As a reaction to similar problems in traditional software development, agile methods appeared. In agile software development, the product is developed in small iterations that each adds a subset of the needed functionality. Further, each iteration covers requirement specification, design, implementation, test, and documentation for the covered functionality. By using agile methods, one gets a working solution much faster and a solution that is much more flexible if the requirements change. In the AOBI project, we aim to transfer and adapt agile methods to BI projects such that the time between the launch of a project and when the project is ready (the so-called "time-to-market") is reduced.
Open source software is free and its source code is available to anyone. In some areas, open source software is widely used. Apache's open source web server is, for example, used on more than 70% of all web sites. Within BI, the use of open source software is, however, rather limited although some open source BI tools exist. In the AOBI project, we want to investigate the possibilities with open source BI software and try to make it easier to use.
There are thus two focus areas in the AOBI project: Agile methods and open source software. Both areas can help to reduce the costs of a BI project -- in particular when they are combined.
The AOBI project is caried out by Daisy and three private companies. More information (in Danish): aobi.dk
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Agile & Open Business Intelligence (AOBI)