Aligning your company’s business intelligence initiatives with overall corporate strategy makes complete sense. Few would argue against such an intuitive approach, especially as articulated by Robert Kaplan, father of the proverbial Balanced Scorecard. Yet a quick review of the real world reminds us how often we defy such thoughtful strategy and instead play things by ear.

. . . as a BI leader, you are not elected; you are in a position of management authority, but do people perform as you want them to simply because you force them? Somehow you must motivate them. Motivation comes from a connection between vision and our role in that vision. Whether it’s the vision of America that candidates present to constituents or the vision of the business impact of BI, people are often motivated to be part of something larger than themselves.

One strategy to improve the effectiveness of business intelligence teams is to increase the clarity of roles and responsibilities.

If you’re a manager, director, vice president, or even the president of your company, I have a simple question for you. Who is responsible for the success of your team and/or organization? Most of you have probably responded, “That’s easy, we all are – after all, I can’t do it myself!” Good answer. Unfortunately, in practice, research shows that people in a managerial or leadership role regularly take on too much responsibility for the success of their areas, and this predictable behavior has its consequences. Those at the top of the “system,” whether we define the system as being a business intelligence (BI) team, a task force, a division, or even the entire organization, often feel burdened, exhausted, and overwhelmed. And what’s worse, their behavior may be limiting the success of their team.

It’s the culture… a convenient boogeyman to blame when things don’t seem to work the way we’d like them to. The culture will never change, the culture won’t allow us to succeed, the culture gets in the way of our business intelligence progress and performance.

The basic principles of supply and demand pertain to a company’s ability to recruit and retain business intelligence (BI) professionals. My company has been CONNECTing (forgive the pun) data warehousing and business intelligence professionals with consulting and employee positions since 1992. During this 15-year span, we have certainly experienced the cycles of both 1) more-demand-than-supply of qualified resources, and 2) more supply-than-demand of qualified resources.

It was a dark and dreary night in the office space of the business intelligence (BI) team. The internal business customers paced outside the cubicle area, tapping their feet and shaking their heads. “Are they done yet…what’s taking so long? Why can’t I get what I want, when I want it, at the price and quality I deserve? I AM the customer!”

Dave was furious! Barb had committed to finishing the business requirements by Tuesday, and as of Thursday, it still wasn’t done. In their meeting with their CFO and her staff, the financial analysts had specifically requested the reports for the Board meeting on the first of December. Dave was dependent on Barb so he could complete the reports that were due on Monday. So, Dave did what many competent business intelligence professionals do; he vented to a third person on the team, Robin.

I recently interviewed a gentleman for an open director position with one of my clients. In the course of our conversation, we discussed that one of the “leadership” skills that had been identified as an area for growth in his previous job was “networking.” Although he was excited about the possibility, I find that many people typically think of that term as one of the most dreaded developmental challenges that good leaders must address.

The Data Warehousing Maturity Model described by Wayne Eckerson, Director of Research for TDWI, describes six (6) stages that data warehousing initiatives typically move through over time. The stages are defined by a number of characteristics that either move the initiative forward or cause it to stall. One of those factors is related to the “perceptions” of the Business Intelligence (BI) initiative. Since perception is not necessarily a logical, concrete component that technology-type people typically manage, I’d like to share some examples of BI teams and what they have done to manage perception by increasing the visibility of their initiatives