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.

In BI and data warehousing organizations, there is a pattern of dissatisfied internal customers and siloed organizations. What is going on? The customer waits. “When will IT finally get their act together and deliver? Why don’t they serve me? Why don’t they understand what I want? I am the reason they exist…they don’t get it!”

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

There are a variety of business intelligence (BI) platforms that have been successful over time. The list of products and vendors is ever-changing and is the topic of many discussions and articles. However, there are two other types of non-technical “platforms” that may propel or inhibit your success in business intelligence. They are central to your ability to change and manage change in your organization.

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.

All of us, regardless of organizational position, make decisions. Making the best decision with the best information is the basis of decision support systems and the impetus for business intelligence (BI). However, there are a variety of decisions made by the BI team, managers, and business that occur in the process of building the decision support infrastructure. In fact, many BI managers and teams seem to struggle with the concept of who makes what decision and the best way to decide.

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!”

In the early ‘90s when I was at General Electric, I recall sitting in my office with Bill Inmon in the chair across from my desk. He drew a picture on a piece of notebook paper describing the inefficient mess of spaghetti code created to satisfy the reporting requests of corporate America. He explained the concept of a data warehouse, and his passion for that concept influenced me. It was one of those ideas that created a buzzword, and that buzzword created an industry that has influenced a multitude of companies and individuals.

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.