Nicto - Proof of concept

PROOF OF CONCEPT - (20 DAYS)

Even though usually, a Nicto demonstration suffices to establish the Nicto capacities and to have the marketing executive dreaming about having that solution deployed, nothing can replace a real trial on the field, using operational data of the interested company.
In order to guaranty the Nicto POC's success, we see 3 key components:

It needs to be pertinent (for example, it must show KPIs that are of a certain interest for one or more groups in the company);
It must bring the interested company into the real (but smaller) implementation process of Nicto, (this way the company gets an overview of the deployment methodology);
the community surrounding the business process related to the POC and those who know best the related data sources, must be well represented within the team that is put in place for the sake of the POC.

APPROACH

Scoping (1d)
This first step, taking place at the company's site, has 4 objectives: 1) have the participants to present themselves, 2) assure a good understanding of the methodology, 3) to well define the business subject and objectives included into the POC and 4) to identify the data sources that will be used.

Data extraction
The extraction of the operational systems' data that has been identified at the previous step is executed. We suggest, if that is possible, to write re-usable scripts for that extraction, in preparation of a potential complete Nicto implementation.

Data audit (2d)
The extracted data is conveyed (usually by ftp) to Nicto and then undergoes a basic descriptive modeling, which informs us of the list of received variables, their nature, as well as the distribution of the possible values for each of them. All this information is shared with the POC's participants, for the sake of formal validation.

Business rules (2d)
The correct interpretation of the received data cannot be done without a good knowledge of the related business rules. The rules will be transmitted, discussed and coded in Nicto, making sure the business situation related to the POC is correctly represented.

Programming - ETL (6d)
Taking the business rules and the result of the data audit as specifications, we program the scripts that are responsible for the data transformation and data loading into the multi-dimensional data structure underlying Nicto.

Programming - Indicators (6d)
Based on the available data in Nicto, indicators are developed in order to respond to the business need ex-pressed at the scoping stage of the process.

Nicto environnement setup (2d)
The indicators are regrouped under a hierarchical structure for the sake of presentation in Nicto. It is also at this stage that the users' accounts, the collaboration space and the news service is created and that the security rules are applied.

Final presentation (1d)
Nicto is now ready to answer the business intelligence need that was defined during the scoping phase. A final presentation answering the educational need will be made for all the POC's participants as well as the Nicto users.