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Loki Aguilera-Keifert
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BI 0→1 Framework/Step 1: Scope & Strategy

Step 1: Scope & Strategy

Define business requirements, stakeholder needs, and success metrics before writing any code.

The Problem

Business Challenge: Chicago's economic development team needed real-time visibility into small business activity across neighborhoods to make data-driven policy decisions.

Current State: Data scattered across multiple city departments, quarterly manual reports, no real-time insights, limited neighborhood-level granularity.

Desired Outcome: Live dashboard showing business license trends, permit activity, and economic health indicators updated daily.

Stakeholder Mapping

Primary Users

  • Economic Development Director - Weekly strategy reviews
  • Policy Analysts - Neighborhood trend analysis
  • Mayor's Office - Monthly executive briefings

Secondary Users

  • Community Organizations - Public dashboard access
  • Business Associations - Trend monitoring
  • Academic Researchers - Historical data analysis

Requirements Framework

Functional Requirements

Data Requirements

  • Business license applications (new, renewals, closures)
  • Building permits by type and neighborhood
  • Business registration trends over time
  • Geographic distribution and clustering

Dashboard Requirements

  • Executive summary with key metrics
  • Neighborhood-level drill-down capability
  • Time-series trend analysis
  • Comparative analysis between areas

Success Metrics

Business Metrics

  • • 90% reduction in report preparation time
  • • Daily data freshness (vs quarterly)
  • • 5+ policy decisions informed by dashboard

Technical Metrics

  • • 99% data pipeline uptime
  • • <2 second dashboard load time
  • • <24 hour data lag from source to viz

Technical Scope

In Scope (MVP)

  • ✅ Chicago Open Data Portal integration
  • ✅ Daily automated data refresh
  • ✅ Looker Studio dashboard
  • ✅ 5 core KPIs + trend analysis
  • ✅ Neighborhood-level granularity

Out of Scope (Future)

  • ❌ Real-time streaming updates
  • ❌ Predictive modeling
  • ❌ Multi-city expansion
  • ❌ Advanced user management
  • ❌ API for external access

Framework Progress

✓
Scope & Strategy
2
Data Ingestion
3
Transform & Model
4
Load & Validate
5
Visualize & Report
6
Automate & Scale

Key Takeaway

Spending 2 weeks on requirements gathering saved 6 weeks of development time by preventing scope creep and ensuring stakeholder alignment from day one.

Tools Used

Stakeholder InterviewsRequirements MatrixSuccess Metrics FrameworkTechnical Scoping
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