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.

Comment from a CFO: “BI projects are always late, over budget, and hard to track and understand…if only the IT department would…”

Comment from a CIO: “My business customer is a very vocal critic of the IT team, but won’t invest five minutes trying to make it better…if only the business would…”

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!”

To be successful in business intelligence, system sight should be one of your key competencies.

The business intelligence world is dominated by the word “systems.” We have source systems, operational systems, ETL systems, database systems, application systems, data warehouse systems, reporting systems, analytic systems and business intelligence systems. But the “system” that tends to be most misunderstood and challenging for most people is the organizational “system” that we live in.

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.

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.

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

One word that dominates discussions about business intelligence and data warehousing these days is “partnership.” Go to any TDWI conference or seminar and you’ll surely hear conversations revolving around this seemingly simple concept. Yet, so many organizations still endure significant difficulty in building lasting partnerships. Why?

Business Intelligence (BI) program and project managers spend the bulk of their time ensuring that projects are completed correctly. But even BI projects that succeed in meeting a timeline and budget can be failures if the results don’t address prioritized business needs and objectives.