The development of a business intelligence system can be assimilated to a project, with a specific final objective, expected development times and costs, and the usage and coordination of the resources needed to perform planned activities.

Analysis: During the first phase, the needs of the organization relative to the development of a business intelligence system should be carefully identified. This preliminary phase is generally conducted through a series of interviews of knowledge workers performing different roles and activities within the organization. It is necessary to clearly describe the general objectives and priorities of the project, as well as to set out the costs and benefits deriving from the development of the business intelligence system.

Design - The second phase includes two sub-phases and is aimed at deriving a provisional plan of the overall architecture, taking into account any development in the near future and the evolution of the system in the midterm

Planning - The planning stage includes a sub-phase where the functions of the business intelligence system are defined and described in greater detail. Subsequently, existing data as well as other data that might be retrieved externally are assessed. This allows the information structures of the business intelligence architecture, which consist of a central data warehouse and possibly some satellite data marts, to be designed.

Implementation and control: The last phase consists of five main sub-phases. First, the data warehouse and each specific data mart are developed. These represent the information infrastructures that will feed the business intelligence system. In order to explain the meaning of the data contained in the data warehouse and the transformations applied in advance to the primary data, metadata archive should be created.