Data warehousing

There is an interesting three part article on data warehousing on a tight budget (part two is located here). It even looks at outsourcing in these circumstances:

Going outside of the organisation is a different yet excellent way to access DW professionals. Although per-hour rates can seem steep at times, the savings from hiring a dedicated team can be substantial. Outsourcing can be a terrific way for an organization to begin a data warehousing initiative as it later takes a strong first step toward building an in-house team to manage the solution.

Another scenario where outsourcing is beneficial is when an organizational project requires extra help to fill a particular role or requires overflow capacity. If you have a business analyst, DBA, ETL developer, and BI developer available, but your organization still needs a data modeler who is capable of mapping complex source systems, outsourcing makes sense. Similarly, if the ETL development will be more substantial than your existing resources can accomplish, bringing in additional experts to supplement your team members can allow your organization to meet demands within the project plan without being concerned about having excess/idle team members at other times in the project.

Checkpoint consulting (consulting provided by an expert on a part-time basis over the life of the project) has proven to be an excellent way of benefiting from the vast experience of an enterprise DW team while paying for only a fraction of a consultant. An experienced consultant with broad and deep knowledge and experience can evaluate your existing data warehouse and business intelligence solutions, make recommendations, and, ultimately, help you leverage your existing assets.

Each of these roles is critical to the proper implementation of a data warehouse, but each is also a key aspect of the human costs associated with each DW project. Clearly, these roles are important and as much as an organization attempts to maximize its budget through cost-effective decision-making, one area where an organization must be willing to make an investment is in its DW implementation team. This is an investment, although seemingly too significant at first, which makes all of the difference when considering a project's success. When operating on a limited budget, it is the organization's responsibility to find a way to maximize its people for the benefit of a project as opposed to the detriment of it.

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