Piloting the Power of Business Intelligence
In several of our previous blogs we have discussed the proper way to build a business intelligence enterprise solution. Many of you have responded in agreement with much of the content and the steps required to truly unlock the potential of BI. However, there are a number of readers who have reached out and asked for ways to promote BI within an organization that does not have a deep understanding or appreciation of what business intelligence can do. In other words, those that still view BI as mere reports.
Promoting BI certainly is a challenge if the organization has a lack of appreciation for what business intelligence truly represents. However, there are still proven methods to promote BI within the organization. The key way to do this is to find one area of the business that has acute pain, secure an executive sponsor who needs that pain resolved, and pilot the power of business intelligence. Done correctly, the executive and business unit will become BI evangelists, spreading the word internally and driving the desire for business intelligence organization-wide.
The key to this approach is to deliver results in a very quick fashion. Contrary to what has been preached previously on the holistic approach to BI, this will require an iterative development process, so you still need to be careful to treat this as a pilot and make sure the pilot does not become the foundation of the organizational BI structure and unknowingly paint yourself into corners that will later result in much rework.
In summary the steps to this approach include:
- Find pain in the organization.
- Secure an executive sponsor that requires a solution to that pain.
- Take an iterative approach to development. The first delivery may not be perfect, but show speed of response. (Also don’t worry about getting every BI requirement correct the first time. Let the process develop the requirements. )
- Demo the solution — perhaps start with a simple dashboard (see our earlier blog on how to build a proper BI dashboard) as this will help displace the myth of BI as a simple report.
- Tweak the solution based upon feedback.
- Once tweaked, let the business begin to utilize the BI solution, appreciate it and evangelize. Once it realizes BI truly helps enable more mature decision-making, that’s when buy-in occurs.
Hopefully, done well, there will be an influx of requests for increased business intelligence analytics across the organization. Once that need is established, you can take the proper steps to build out your enterprise BI program.
Questions about this? I hear them all the time. If you have any, don’t be afraid to reach out.
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MIPRO Consulting main website.
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