Task: Determine business objectives
The first objective of the analyst is to thoroughly understand, from a business perspective, what the client really wants to accomplish. Often the customer has many competing objectives and constraints that must be properly balanced. The analyst’s goal is to uncover important factors at the beginning of the project that can influence the final outcome. A likely consequence of neglecting this step would be to expend a great deal of effort producing the correct answers to the wrong questions.
Activities: Problem area (100 words)
Identify the problem area (e.g., Marketing, Customer Care, Business Development, etc.). Describe the problem in general terms. Check the current status of the project (e.g., Check if it is already clear within the business unit that we are performing a data mining project or do we need to advertise data mining as a key technology in the business?). Clarify prerequisites of the project (e.g., what is the motivation of the project? Does the business already use data mining?). Identify target groups for the project result (e.g., Do we expect a written report for top management or do we expect a running system that is used by naive end users?). Identify the users’ needs and expectations.