FlashPoint Newsletter

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		December 8, 2011	ANNOUNCEMENTS New TDWI Checklist Reports: Delivering Higher Business Value with Operational Business Intelligence and Real-Time Information Preparing Your Organization for Master Data Management CONTENTS How to Make Your BI Program More Successful Managing Resistance to Change in BI Projects Definition of Terms and Concepts: Data Warehouse Platform Mistake: Staffing Data Migrations with Data Warehouse Team Members See what's current in TDWI Education, Research, Webinars, and Marketplace
	How to Make Your BI Program More Successful Adrian Alleyne DecisionPath Consulting
Topic: BI Programs Five Challenges That Hamper Success DecisionPath recently launched an ongoing survey of business and IT leaders exploring how data is used for better decision making. The results thus far have provided us with insight into several challenges we’ve observed as business intelligence (BI) consultants. They fall into five broad categories of impediments that cause BI programs to deliver less value than they could. 1. Lack of Strategy Companies struggle to develop business-focused BI requirements or get buy-in from business executives: 36 percent of the BI directors we surveyed listed “inadequate involvement in BI by executives and the business” as a major challenge--another 27 percent said the challenge was moderate. Our business users said there was inadequate business intelligence for some of their core strategic and operational functions. With their current BI, finance has difficulty connecting operational performance to financial results; operations struggles with monitoring and managing costs; sales cannot optimize sales and distribution channels; and marketing is less efficient at acquiring and retaining customers. Although BI isn’t a magic bullet, BI can have a significant impact on these functions. Getting It Right Here’s a short list of steps you can take to get BI strategy right: Your company leaders must develop a keen awareness of the environmental factors driving their business Make sure key business processes are used to effectively execute your strategy Identify and measure strategically relevant performance factors Make sure your BI initiatives provide information and analytical tools to make management processes more effective 2. Lack of Readiness For any BI initiative to live up to its potential value, you have to be ready. How’s your data quality? Is your IT infrastructure ready? Can you prioritize BI projects? Over half (54 percent) our respondents indicated that data governance was a major challenge, and 27 percent said it was a moderate problem. Without proper data governance, it’s difficult for your BI program to deliver accurate and useful results. Unfortunately, 90 percent of respondents said they lacked the funding necessary to develop the desired capabilities and results from their BI projects. It would be unusual to hear a developer say they have too much money for projects, of course, but these findings do suggest that investment in BI infrastructure could be improved. Getting It Right There are a number of success factors for BI readiness; they fall into three general categories: the ability to align and govern (which we’ve already discussed briefly), the ability to leverage, and the ability to deliver. Here are some questions to ask yourself when looking at your own readiness: Is there strategic alignment between business users and BI teams? Is there a strong business/IT partnership (do business leaders understand technology and does the technical staff understand the business)? Is there a strategy to manage and prioritize your BI portfolio? Is there a decision-process-engineering culture? Are your data assets and your technology infrastructure appropriate for your BI needs? 3. Lack of Direction Are BI projects well defined? Does the project direction frequently change? Are BI projects given priority? In our survey, 45 percent of respondents indicated that “deprioritizing” BI projects was a major challenge, and 27 percent indicated that it was a moderate challenge. Even when BI projects are prioritized highly, companies have difficulty developing a clear direction. As one respondent put it, business users often “jump the line with their latest emergency.” Getting It Right Many companies begin their BI programs in an ad hoc fashion, causing them to become unmanageable. This is actually a good sign. It shows that there’s a commitment to using BI. Here’s a methodology to help you give direction to your BI program: Create a BI strategy to determine how to improve profits and performance Assess BI risks to help identify barriers to success and changes needed to govern, deliver, and leverage BI Develop a road map to set a starting point, establish priorities, and determine the optimal path forward Execute BI projects, leveraging best practices for BI delivery and use that best fits your organization Leverage for business results, continuously improving core business processes through BI Adopting a methodology that ties business strategy to BI programs is crucial to developing a direction for your BI program. 4. Lack of Execution Execution is where the rubber meets the road. In our survey, we asked BI directors whether the following was a problem: “Business users believe that BI projects take too long, and they either lose interest or change requirements by the time the project is done.” Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of our respondents said that it was either a major challenge, and more than a quarter said it was a moderate challenge. Getting It Right Here are some ways to get on the right track for successful execution: Use an effective, repeatable methodology on all BI projects Work with business users to design what they need via BI applications Develop strong data-quality and stewardship skills as well as strong source-system analysis skills 5. Lack of Impact Nearly three-quarters of respondents (73 percent) indicated that measuring the business value realized through BI was a big challenge. This isn’t surprising. If you don’t have a clear strategy linking business objectives and processes to BI projects; if the people, processes, and infrastructure aren’t ready to leverage BI; or if there’s a lack of BI direction, then implementing a BI program that lacks impact is almost inevitable. Getting It Right Companies we’ve worked with that are able to measure the impact of BI have developed a systematic approach for leveraging BI for bottom-line business results. To be successful, you need to: Implement business process change to integrate BI applications into processes that drive BI impact Measure adoption and usage, including performance and usage measures as well as growth measures Measure business results and set new targets as part of a continuous improvement culture The Opportunities Are There Although these steps won’t ensure success, they will help position your company to leverage BI in a way that greatly increases your chances of it having a major impact. As our research shows, a number of opportunities in an organization can better leverage BI. If you want to be a part of that research, we’d love to get your input. If you’d like to learn more about the survey results thus far, you can download our initial report. Adrian Alleyne is director of market research for DecisionPath Consulting, which specializes in business intelligence, data warehousing, and performance management solutions. Contact Adrian at 301.990.1204. Managing Resistance to Change in BI Projects Lorna Rickard CONNECT: The Knowledge Network Topic: Change Management Our organizations are in a near-constant state of flux. Changes in processes, systems, and personnel leave employees confused, exhausted, and, in many cases, disengaged. Research by the Gallup organization indicates that up to two-thirds of employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged. If you are a program or project manager in business intelligence (BI), this factor can have negative implications for adoption rates. Even supposedly stable BI programs must incorporate changes in source systems, regulatory requirements, company strategy, competition, leadership, staff, and acquisitions. While it is generally assumed that people resist change, it is probably more accurate to say that people resist being forced to change, which leads to a feeling of vulnerability and loss of control. Imposed change is seen as unexpected, sudden, disruptive, and problematic. Is it any wonder that employees resist it? Two strategies will go a long way toward easing these feelings and improving your chances of implementing change in your BI program. The first is a solid communication plan; the second involves the people directly impacted by the change. A good communication plan will have at least two phases. The first phase should include answers to such critical questions as: What exactly is changing? Why is this change necessary? Why now? What is the priority for the change? Who will be most impacted by the change? Long-term research conducted by Prosci reveals that not understanding why the change is happening is the most common cause of resistance. Answers to these overarching questions are best delivered by the executive sponsor, CIO, or program manager. A common communication mistake is to assume your audience understands the message you are attempting to deliver. In general, people need to hear a message five to seven times before it is cemented into their thinking. Many employees may not pay attention to messages regarding the change until it begins to impact them personally. Be creative in the channels you use: intranet Q&A forums, voice messaging, demonstrations, the company newsletter, a change wall. Keep in mind that two-way channels improve feedback and involvement, and allow you to check for understanding. In fact, where possible, it may be helpful to have people summarize their understanding of key decisions, issues, or messages at the end of meetings and conversations. Without clear communications, employees will develop awareness based on rumors or misunderstandings. In short, you can’t overcommunicate. As implementation draws nearer, the messages should change to include information about how each team or department will be impacted. Although the initial change messages may be delivered by the executive sponsor or the program or project manager, eventually the messenger role shifts to the managers and supervisors of the impacted teams. Your role will be to equip them with the content necessary to keep their people informed. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, said, "Change is disturbing when done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us." Involving those impacted by the change is the second key strategy for gaining commitment. Employee ownership of part of the solution naturally builds commitment. Target the opinion shapers (especially if they are resistant to the change) or involve an entire team as a pilot for the initial rollout. They could provide feedback and advice about their experience with implementing the change. This team will become change champions as you move forward. Be sure to include their experience and successes in your communication to the at-large employee group. Employees are interested in hearing about success stories or even struggles from those who have been involved in the early stages of the change. Imposed change predictably raises feelings of vulnerability and anxiety in many people. Clear communication about why the change is necessary and finding ways to involve those impacted by the change will help mediate these natural responses and ensure smoother implementation of changes in your BI program. Lorna Rickard is the chief workforce architect with CONNECT: The Knowledge Network, a consulting firm that specializes in data, technical, and organizational solutions for business intelligence. She will be co-facilitating Power, Politics, and Partnership in BI Projects at the TDWI World Conference in Las Vegas in February 2012. Lorna can be reached 303.730.7171, ext. 231. References [2005]. Best Practices in Change Management, Benchmarking Report, Prosci. Highlight of key findings from TDWI's wide variety of research Definition of Terms and Concepts: Data Warehouse Platform For the purposes of this report, a data warehouse platform consists of one or more hardware servers, an operating system, a database management system (DBMS), and data storage. These communicate via a LAN or WAN, although a multi-node data warehouse platform may have its own specialized network. Note that a data warehouse platform manages a data warehouse, defined as a collection of metadata, data model, and data content, designed for the purposes of reporting, analyzing information, and making decisions. But the data warehouse is not part of the platform per se. (See Figure 1.) All these components and more have seen generational advances in recent years. (Click for larger image) Source: Next Generation Data Warehouse Platforms (TDWI Best Practices Report, Q4 2009). Access the report here. FlashPoint Rx prescribes a "Mistake to Avoid" for business intelligence and data warehousing professionals. Mistake: Staffing Data Migrations with Data Warehouse Team Members By Philip Russom Data migrations rarely involve BI data stores, like data warehouses and marts, yet migrations are strongly relevant to data warehouse professionals because they’re often tapped to do the work. This makes sense, because data migrations of all types are best done with data integration and data quality tools and techniques that data warehousing professionals know well. This is problematic because diverting data warehouse team members to data migration work delays important work in business intelligence. Data migration merits a permanent investment, not a temporary reassignment of resources. After all, data migration is something that companies of any size and age do repeatedly. Organizations that have numerous legacy and redundant systems can easily spend years migrating and consolidating them. Some companies put off a needed migration for years, waiting for technical resources to become available or for a legacy platform to depreciate. Even if an organization has polished its enterprise data architecture via migrations, consolidations, and upgrades, a couple of acquisitions will force the organization to do it all over again. Hence, assigning permanent, dedicated resources to ongoing data migration efforts is recommended in organizations that face legacy, siloed, and redundant systems on the technical side or recurring reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, and partnerships involving data exchange on the business side. Source: Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Migrating Databases (Q4 2008). Access the publication here.