Business Intelligence Quality refers to the level of the utility of the components of the Business Intelligence product in achieving the goals established.   Quality is described in terms of the characteristics and metrics which may be used to measure the level of utility.    The product components and some descriptions of the utility goals which may be established for each are described in separate sections.  Please click on the component names to see the quality definitions.

Business Intelligence Quality

Data

Information

Business Intelligence

How is Business Intelligence Quality Defined?

Voice of the Customer:   Business Intelligence Quality must be defined in terms of the satisfaction of the customer requirements.   The Business Intelligence customers may be classified in four categories – the internal 'end user'; the external customer; the organization; and, any special needs users who are satisfied with the requirements defined for the other customer categories.   

Metrics  The industry literature on quality management indicates that quality may defined by the absence of defects.  Business Intelligence defects are conditions in the product which make it difficult or impossible to use the delivered information to meet the goals/needs for which the BI product has been designed.  Business Intelligence Quality is the degree to which the BI product is free of defects that limit its utility in meeting those goals.  In most cases, the BI quality metrics will be used to measure defects associated with Critical to Quality Goals.  For example, response time goals may be set at plus/minus 6 seconds for any query with a level one complexity.  Defects are measured as the number of queries which do not meet those limits.  

Measurable Characteristics:  The quality of Business Intelligence may be defined in terms of Critical to Quality characteristics.  CTQs (Critical to Quality) are the key measurable characteristics of Business Intelligence which incorporate performance standards or specification limits which must be met to satisfy the customer.  They align improvement or design efforts with customer requirements.
CTQs represent the product or service characteristics that are defined by the customer (internal or external). They may include the upper and lower specification limits or any other factors related to the product or service.  A CTQ usually must be interpreted from a qualitative customer statement to an actionable, quantitative business specification.  In other words, CTQs are what the customer expects of a product, i.e. the needs as expressed by the customer. The customer may often explain these in plain English, but it is up to us to convert them to measurable terms.   

These measurable quality characteristics allow us to direct improvement and management efforts to align with the requirements of the customer.   To effectively manage Business Intelligence, we must make a systematic attempt to define measurements for BI quality and create and use a process for managing to quality goals.  We will define BI quality in terms of critical to quality factors to which we can apply metrics and collect data to reflect that quality. In this section, we identify and define those factors which are critical to quality for Business Intelligence.