What is a Microsoft Fabric Lighthouse Project?
A Lighthouse Project is a focused piece of work that helps you understand how you can use Microsoft Fabric to solve a particular business challenge. Through these projects, we focus on getting results early, while putting the right foundations in place so you’re not creating more work, cost or complexity further down the line.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to get more from an existing Fabric investment, a Lighthouse Project will help you make meaningful progress.
How a Lighthouse Project solves problems
Rather than spending months building a data platform and then looking for ways to use it, we start with a problem that’s worth solving.
That could mean:
Bringing fragmented data together
Replacing manual reporting
Improving access to trusted information
Giving teams a clearer picture of what’s happening across the business
We work with your people to understand the challenge, agree measurable outcomes, and deliver a working solution.
This isn’t simply a proof of concept for Fabric. Our aim for a Lighthouse Project is to build something that can be used in the real world, with the appropriate security, governance and ownership in place from the outset.
Why start with a Lighthouse Project?
See value sooner
Focus on one business problem where better data can make a measurable difference, rather than waiting for a wider transformation programme to deliver results.
Reduce the risk
Start with a clearly defined scope, real data, and real users. We help you to prove the approach before making bigger investment decisions.
Build foundations you can reuse
Establish the architecture, integration, and governance needed for your first solution, with an eye on what you’ll need next.
Build confidence and capability
Work alongside Oakland Everything Data’s specialists, so your people understand what’s been built, why decisions were made, and how to take things forward.
How does a Lighthouse Project work?
Every Lighthouse Project is different. The scope and timescale depend on your business challenge, the data involved, and what you’re trying to achieve.
Our approach always follows four practical stages:
1. Define the problem
We start with the business question, not the technology. Working with your team, we’ll work to understand the challenge, who needs the solution, and what a successful outcome looks like for your Microsoft Fabric investment. We’ll assess the value, feasibility and readiness of the use case before agreeing on the scope, ownership and measures of success.
2. Design the solution
We’ll assess your existing environment and design the Microsoft Fabric solution around the use case. That means putting the right security, data quality controls, governance, and architecture in place without building more than you need.
3. Build, test and deliver
Our specialists work alongside your team to bring the data together and develop the solution in manageable steps. We test the data, access controls, and outputs against agreed requirements, involving users to make sure it’s reliable, useful, and ready for real-world adoption.
4. Validate, hand over and plan what’s next
We’ll review the results against the agreed success measures, confirm ownership and support arrangements, and transfer the documentation and knowledge your team needs. We’ll also identify what can be reused and agree sensible next priorities.
What will you have at the end of a Lighthouse Project?
More than a demonstration and a PowerPoint presentation.
Depending on the agreed scope, your Lighthouse Project will deliver:
- A working data product that addresses a real business need and is tested against agreed outcomes.
- Trusted, usable data brought together from the relevant sources.
- Secure, governed foundations that support the solution and future development.
- Reusable components and patterns that make subsequent projects easier.
- Clear ownership and knowledge transfer so your team can support and develop what has been built.
- A practical view of what comes next informed by the results of the project.
Microsoft Fabric built with you, not just for you
Oakland’s Microsoft Fabric specialists work alongside your team, bringing together data engineering, architecture, governance and analytics expertise. We help your people understand what’s been built and prepare to take it forward.
Prove, reuse, scale
A better way to build your data capability
It’s tempting to design an entire data platform before delivering the first business benefit. But that can mean a lot of investment before anyone sees a return.
As a Microsoft Data and AI Consultancy, we take a more practical approach:
- Prove
We start with one priority use case and deliver something useful with real data and real users to demonstrate the business value.
- Reuse
Next, we build on the data, architecture, governance and delivery patterns established during the first project. Starting again isn’t what we do.
- Scale
By introducing new data products and capabilities as the business needs them, each project adds value and builds on what’s already there.
Ready to put Microsoft Fabric to work?
If you have a business problem you think Fabric could help solve, we’re here to make it happen. Whether you’ve already identified a use case or need some help defining it, let’s talk. We’ll help you work out what’s achievable, what it will take, and where to start.
Get started with a Lighthouse Project