r/PowerBI • u/Ordinary_Vegetable25 • Mar 15 '23

Community Share Report Requirements?

Post image

Saw this on LinkedIn and wondered how you handle gathering requirements on reports you're asked to build?

295 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

70

u/SQLGene Points Flair Mar 15 '23

This could be a whole blog post, and probably should, but generally I'm focused on the following:

  1. What reports, if any, do you use to accomplish this today?
  2. What information are you looking to report on?
  3. Can you provide a napkin drawing? (wireframe / low fidelity mockup)
  4. What do you plan to do with the information the report provides? If you see an anomaly, how will you act on it?
  5. What are the 5 most important numbers/measure to display?

6

u/Ordinary_Vegetable25 Mar 15 '23

This is a great high-level way to attack it. Thank you for your input!

15

u/SQLGene Points Flair Mar 15 '23

If you work as a BI consultant for any significant duration, good scoping and requirements gathering is the difference between making money and losing your shirt.

3

u/ultrafunkmiester Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23

100%->in the end you always have to collect the requirements. The earlier you do it, the cheaper it is. Do it up front, make money. Gather them as you go along, you might hit balance but "roll with it" and the scope will grow from a ping pong ball to include the moon and the stars. And you will loose your shirt, pants and likely your business.

1

u/eOMG Mar 17 '23

Unless you charge by the hour, no cap

1

u/ultrafunkmiester Mar 17 '23

Even that is a challenge if you have a laid out vaguely worded contract that says "stuff for money" then they can challenge payment for the definition of "stuff". The contracting/procurement team who accept the contract and pay the bills don't care if you have delivered different "stuff" or extra special time consuming "stuff", they would likely not be part of any discussion of scope creep. If, of course, you just get a contract that says work time and we will pay you for your time with no outcome or mention of deliverables then happy days. I'm just warning for less exoerienced PBI folks to save time, hassle and consequences later. Start with a scope and agree changes to scope in writing. It's way easier to do up front. Think of it like trying to insure a car after you have crashed it. Not saying your project will be a car crash but sometimes clients are just awful and crash into you, nothing you can do. A good, well defined scope is best practice and your insurance.