Agile values or plan-driven aspects: Which factor contributes more toward the success of data warehousing, business intelligence, and analytics project development?

Practically all organizations are developing data warehousing, business intelligence, and analytics (DW/BIA) projects for achieving customer value. A DW/BIA development project may be characterized by both agile and plan-driven aspects. The reported study investigated two research questions: (1) Which factor, agile values or plan-driven aspects, contributes more toward the success of DW/BIA? (2) What are the significant antecedents of agile values and plan-driven aspects? 124 respondents engaged in DW/BIA development filled a 30-item questionnaire on seven constructs. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to determine the strength of the relationships among the following factors: technological capability, shared understanding, top management commitment, and complexity as antecedents; agile values and plan-driven aspects as mediating; and project success as the dependent construct. Based on a prediction-oriented segmentation (PLS-POS) analysis, the findings indicate that there are two groups, agile-plan balanced and agile-heavy, which represent different approaches to DW/BIA development. Top management commitment and shared understanding emerge as strong antecedents to agile values and plan-driven aspects. Overall, the factor agile values contributes more toward the success of DW/BIA development.