13% achieve BI objectives

I'm tired of reading posts about business intelligence needing "an army of consultants", concerns about "losing control over our BI system to a third party", and only 13% achieved their business intelligence objectives.

Or Boris Evelson's quote, "Business intelligence is still an art much more than a science."

Or Hound of the BI-skervilles stating that data is safer inside a company's firewall than outside in a professional data center.

Based on these comments, the way business intelligence is being done today just doesn't make the grade.   There are all kinds of statistics to support this.

So where will the change come from?  The generation of young people coming into the workforce has the power of change behind them.  They do things differently.  Chat, instant messenger, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter are their tools.  They are information consumers with search, investigation, collaboration skills.

So what about those people and companies wanting to keep and hold onto the status quo.

They say improve and maintain.

I say destroy what we know and reimagine!

They say, "BI needs an army of consultants."

I say, "your scope is too large and unrealistic."

They say, "you need control over our technology."

I say, "leverage the internet and don't reinvent the wheel."

They say that "BI is more an art than a science."

I say, "find repeatability and gain from economies of scale or be one of the 87% of unsuccessful projects."

They say, "we have people with years of experience in business intelligence."

I say, "I love smart, innovative, talented, internet saavy people wanting to turn BI upside down."

They say, "data is safer behind your company firewall."

I say, "what are they smoking. Data centers specialize in security."

They say, "users have a fear of the technology."

I say, "you're using the wrong technology for that audience."

They say, "radical change takes a decade."

I say, "radical change takes a minute.  Those hanging onto the past want it to take longer."

They say this is a rant.

I say this is our reality.

Worst practices, who's got them

Learning from the mistakes of others is the way to go. No need to blaze a new path. It's all been done before. And BI has years of this "experience"; DW has "failures" from decades prior too.

This is backed up by Madan Sheina's article:

• 87% of BI projects in the UK don't live up to expectations.
• 25% of those projects are going over budget.
• Only 50% of end users were satisfied with the BI system

Maybe you're planning to implement BI in your organization. Perhaps you have a BI system but you're not getting the benefits you expect. It's an unruly world in the BI space. Data is a major problem. Tools are another. It's costly and takes lots of your time and effort.

So what are you going to do about it?

You could read Peter Graham's posts about Kevin Quinn's "Worst Practices" whitepaper (saving you from signing up your email address).

Or read the following, which incorporates Kevin's ideas of worst practices but stays away from the marketing of a toolset vendor.

Let's start with the customers, or more specifically the business user. After all this is who BI is meant for. I figure adoption of BI tools is really low. I don't have a specific statistic but I find them difficult to use. People don't have the time to learn a new tool AND don't have the time to understand how to interpret the data.

Apply Tom's Spandex Rule: Just because you can wear spandex shorts, doesn't mean you should! (you know who you are)

Match what the people are asking for and reign in your project team. They can do it all given enough time. A zillion reports. Lots of dimensions, filters, and ranges. However, your BI system should provide what is being asked for. Stay away from the "it would be cool if..." until several years later when people want more.

Ah Excel.

Should you force people away from Excel to use this new BI system? Maybe. Maybe not. Some say Excel is preferred because of it's familiarity and simplicity. Well I think the majority of people who have used Excel don't know how to create a pivot table or know why they should use one.

So in my opinion, Excel is used because it is quick! No involvement from IT. They can do it themselves until it works for them. Typically they are looking to solve a business problem, they just need the evidence.

BI just made their lives a whole lot more complicated. Now they need to write a request for what they want. Then when they get it, it's in this strange BI tool. At which point they copy it into Excel and continue on. Granted they probably have more data than before and cleaner data for sure.

Which brings us to the data warehouse. Yes, a storage area for internal data. What about data external to the organization? Many would caution the use of external sources because of inconsistencies, not having control of the quality, difficulties aligning with the data warehouse, etc.

Let me ask you, "who is the biggest data provider in the world?" Google. What do they do differently? They allow the consumer to determine whether the data is relevant and give them access to everything. They've empowered people with information access.

We need to let it go. The days of the data warehouse or BI team or IT department controlling all the data should come to an end. The business should get access to information they want and need, internal or external, in a BI tool or Excel and when they want/need it.

For instance, Chevron has 200,000 employees worldwide and uses MSFT BI to deliver specific, targeted information to many of them. Starbucks uses Microstrategy to publish in-store metrics to every store manager. Boeing uses MSFT BI to provide manufacturing performance metrics for managers.

These are all extremely large organizations and yet they aren't pushing out tons of cubes, reports, and dashboards. BI is not a central focus for their employees but it does give them targeted information specific to their needs.

Remember Tom's Spandex Rule. Just because they could, doesn't mean they did.

Introducing Business Intelligence Soapbox

Started a website for people who believe that BI can be done better. This is in infancy stage but Gerad has already posted a very informative discussion. I hope you'll check it out.

Have a complaint? Air it. Have an idea? Share it. Start a discussion. Whatever, it’s up to you. Choose a topic and get involved.

Check out Business Intelligence Soapbox:
http://bisoapbox.ning.com/?xgi=iaxuExR

Where is your ego?

An excellent speaker via webinar shared with us what our greatest asset is and I felt compelled to share it with you.

The webinar was about taking advantage of your ego and team ego to build great teams. Many would pause and say it takes a big ego first -- before being successful. Or you get a big ego after achieving success.

But there is a difference between big ego and big ambition!

I must say, I learned more about myself and how our team could work better together in one hour -- I can imagine what 2 days with them would do. Did you know, 99% of us don't have inflated egos all the time but in those moments when we do, we become:

• Defensive


• Comparative


• Seek acceptance


• Showcase our brilliance

To help keep our ego's in check, Dave Marcum and Steve Smith wrote a book called Egonomics where "it's not a book about big egos, but how ego affects the performance of everyone, in everything we do—good or bad—in ways we hardly notice, but have an immense impact."


Ever had a career review and asked for feedback?

Sure, we all have. It can be hard not to become defensive during this process. We say we want feedback but receiving it from some people is so hard.

On EgonomicsLive blog, they reveal the 2 major reasons why we become defensive in this situation. We want to keep: 1) the image we want others to have of us, and 2) the image we need to have of ourselves.

However Egonomics is also about the betterment of the team.

Have you been on a team and wondered how to move from a 'good' to a 'great' performing team? Team Egonomics has short case studies and a guide you can use to discuss the Egonomics techniques directly with your team.

When you want more (and you should), Marcum Smith's personal site has loads of research and compiled results so people can understand the affects of bad ego in the workplace and at home.

Now bringing this ego stuff to BI... Is your BI team highly effective with the right people on the bus and in the right seats? Ask yourself, can you have open water-cooler conversations between business and IT stakeholders all with humble egos? Answer honestly.

You may ask whether this humble approach to ego can survive in a capitalistic "dog eat dog" world?

From Marcum and Steve's extensive research "humility is the only real way to become great". Humility was also used in the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Both found a strong, direct link to leaders who made their companies great performers while having a humble ego.

In the BI world, we constanstly read about the problems between business and IT sponsored projects and the challenges BI projects have. What is it worth to you and your team to have a highly effective team? Could managing your ego make BI successful throughout the organization? Can you afford not to try?

As Marcum says, "Ego works for or against us in each team meeting, boardroom debate, client conversation and interview we have. When we manage ego effectively, it can push us from the mail room to the corner office, from mediocrity to excellence, from bitter discouragement to fierce determination."

Learn to manage your healthy ego.

Strategy & Leadership in January 2008

I came across Erin McCune's post on Leadership is Critical to Project Success on the Forte Financial blog. She references an earlier post of mine on Business vs IT (appreciated) but I would have to say she adds a more important educational component.

Thanks, Erin, for sending out that January 2008 Harvard Business Review is dedicated to Leadership & Strategy. Some of the HBR topics below could be interesting... guess I'll find out when I start reading on the weekend.

• The New Leader's Guide to Diagnosing the Business


• How Star Women Build Portable Skills


• The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change


• The Experience Trap


• The Founder's Dilemma

And just before I left Erin's blog, I saw her latest post on XBRL tools making reporting easier. The tool she references "maps data stored in separate systems and proprietary formats into XBRL so that it is easy to share for reporting and analysis". Excellent idea for using an open standard.

The tool by Enterprise Engineering, Inc, is an XBRL-based analytical tool that makes it possible to compare a company’s income statement, balance sheet and other financial reports to peers and industries.

However, hard to find BI vendor tools that use the XBRL standard in a non-proprietary way.