Im a bit of an armchair climber and mountaineer.

Im fascinated by the
trials and travails of climbing high mountains like Everest, Annapurna,
and others that rise to over 8,000 meters above sea level. These expeditions
are complicated affairs involving challenging planning and logistics, a high
degree of risk and uncertainty, a high probability of death (for every two
climbers who reach the top of Annapurna, another one dies trying!), diffi-
cult decisions in the face of uncontrollable variables, and incredible rewards
when success is achieved. While it may not be as adventuresome, building
complex business intelligence systems is a lot like high-altitude climbing.
We face lots of risk and uncertainty, complex planning, difficult decisions
in the heat of battle, and the likelihood of death! Okay, maybe not that last
part, but you get the analogy. Unfortunately the success rate for building
DW/BI systems isnt very much better than the success rate for high-altitude
mountaineering expeditions.
Climbing teams first began successfully conquering these high mountains
in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. In those early days the preferred mountaineer-
ing style was known as siege climbing, which had a lot of similarities to a
military excursion. Expeditions were led in an autocratic command-and-
control fashion, often by someone with more military leadership experi-
ence than climbing experience. Climbing teams were supported by the large
numbers of porters required to carry massive amounts of gear and supplies
to base camp and higher. Mounting a siege-style expedition takes over a
year of planning and can take two months or more to execute during the
climbing season. Siege climbing is a yo-yo-like affair in which ropes are
fixed higher and higher on the mountain, multiple semipermanent camps
are established at various points along the route, and loads of supplies are
relayed by porters to those higher camps. Finally, with all this support, a
small team of summit climbers launches the final push for the summit on a
single day, leaving from the high camp and returning to the same. Brilliant
teams have successfully climbed mountains for years in this style, but the
expeditions are prohibitively expensive, time-consuming to execute, and
fraught with heavyweight procedures and bureaucracy