Although there have been attempts to use traditional software development methodologies from the OLTP arena for data warehouse development, warehousing practitioners generally agree that an iterative development approach is more suited to warehouse development than are traditional waterfall aproaches.

This section of the book presents an iterative warehousing approach for enterprises about to embark on a data warehousing initiative. The approach begins with the definition of a data warehouse strategy, then proceeds to define the way to set up warehouse management and support processes.

The latter part of the approach focuses on the tasks required to plan and implement one rollout (i.e., one phase) of the warehouse. Repeat these tasks for each phase of the warehouse development.