Identify potential risks and challenges associated with the CDP implementation. These may include data security risks, integration complexities, resource constraints, or change management issues. Develop a plan to mitigate these risks and ensure a smooth implementation process.

Follow these guidelines for risk assessment and mitigation:

  • Identify Risks: Begin by brainstorming and identifying potential risks that could affect your project or organization. These risks can be internal (for example, organizational structure, resource constraints) or external (for example, market conditions, regulatory changes). Involve key stakeholders and subject-matter experts to ensure a comprehensive list.
  • Assess Probability and Impact: Evaluate each identified risk in terms of its likelihood of occurring and the potential impact it could have. Assign a probability rating (for example, low, medium, high) and an impact rating (for example, minor, moderate, severe) to each risk.
  • Prioritize Risks: Determine the priority of each risk by considering its probability and impact ratings. Focus on high-probability risks with severe potential impact, as well as risks that are likely to occur early in the project or have significant implications.
  • Develop Mitigation Strategies: Once risks are prioritized, develop specific strategies to mitigate or minimize their impact. These strategies should be tailored to each risk and can include preventive measures, contingency plans, risk transfer (for example, insurance), risk avoidance (for example, changing project scope), or risk acceptance (for example, when the cost of mitigation outweighs the potential impact).

Create a Business Requirement Document

After prioritizing and finalizing the use cases that will be built in the first build phase, it is time to create a business requirement document. This is usually done by a business analyst working on the project or the data product manager.

A Business Requirement Document (BRD) is a comprehensive document that outlines the objectives, scope, functional requirements, and constraints of a proposed business solution. Here’s an outline of the sections typically included in a BRD:

1. Introduction:

  • Purpose of the document
  • Overview of the project
  • Background information

2. Business Objectives:

  • Clearly state the business objectives and goals that the proposed solution aims to achieve
  • Align the objectives with the organization’s overall strategy

3. Scope:

  • Define the boundaries and extent of the project
  • Identify what is included and excluded from the proposed solution

4. Stakeholders:

  • List and describe the stakeholders involved in the project
  • Identify their roles and responsibilities

5. Functional Requirements:

  • Provide a detailed description of the required system functionality
  • Break down the requirements into specific features and capabilities
  • Use a structured approach, such as user stories or use cases, to capture functional requirements

6. Non-Functional Requirements:

  • Outline the non-functional requirements, which describe system characteristics such as performance, security, reliability, scalability, usability, and more.
  • Specify any constraints or limitations that need to be considered

7. Data Requirements:

  • Identify the data requirements for the proposed solution
  • Describe the types of data needed, data sources, data storage, and data integration considerations

8. Assumptions and Dependencies:

  • Document any assumptions made during the requirements-gathering process
  • Identify any external dependencies that may impact the project

9. Risks and Mitigation Strategies:

  • Identify potential risks and uncertainties associated with the project
  • Describe mitigation strategies and contingency plans to address these risks

10. Project Timeline and Deliverables:

  • Provide an estimated timeline for the project, including key milestones
  • Specify the expected deliverables at each stage of the project

11. Approval and Sign-off:

  • Include a section for stakeholders to review, approve, and sign-off on the document
  • Document the date of approval and the names of approving stakeholders

The preceding is just a template, and the actual BRD structure will vary from one CDP project to another.