Joe Stangarone at mrc-productivity.com has written an article on 5 essential foundational questions to ask before starting any BI project.

He writes:

Business Intelligence (BI) has a problem. Despite the growing need for analytics, most BI projects still fail. Why? Or perhaps a better question: How can we fix it?

In this, the first of a series of articles examining the Business Intelligence process, he shares some of the questions that need to be asked at the start of any BI project.

You can read the full article here.