Risk Assessment Of Data Warehousing, A Case Study

Risks are factors frequently beyond control and can negatively impact organizational ability to achieve the established goals. These are factors that create differences between the reality and an ideal situation. Accurate evaluation of potential risks is integral to a large-scale project, especially when the project has enormous and longterm organizational implications. In that aspect, the risk evaluation for data warehousing is a readiness test to measure preparedness of an organization for the massive project. Although data warehousing concept is rapidly spreading in , many projects have ended up in failure due to the lack of organizational readiness and incomplete risk management. Partial understanding of the risks inherent to data warehousing can be made from the theoretical perspective of critical success factors (CSF) of information systems. However, because of the architectural and procedural complexity, risk assessment of data warehousing demands more comprehensive estimation of other issues as well. A case study was undertaken on the risk management of a data warehousing project. The research focus was placed on identifying main risk factors recognized by the project team in undertaking the large-scale effort. Potential threats to the project were classified under the categories of external dependencies-, organization-, planning-, business case-, and technologyrelationship. Technological risks were again divided into environmental, project-related, and operational ones. The intensity of each identified risk was then represented via a quantitative indicator. The process resulted in a comprehensive understanding of potential sources of trouble and the evaluation of preventive measures that could be taken.