Insights

Do yourself a favour - find out what BI users want up front. Here's how...

06 Apr 2011 Business Intelligence (BI), Business Objects, Project Management & Methodology, Consumer Business

Embedding transformation from the get go - what do users really want?  Well, just ask!  My colleague, Neha Dave has written a number of excellent blogs around user adoption. This blog deals with a slightly wider question - tactics to embed business transformation from the get go. 

We just ask them what they want, they tell us and we do it. That's how IT is done so surely it'll work for BI too....? Err, no!

We all know that the critical success factor for any BI implementation is that it is used. This is not the same as the users simply logging on to download to Excel or Access to develop offline reports they REALLY wanted in the first place. I think we've all had that sinking feeling at some stage of our careers when the business, sheepishly, reveal they have specced up what is essentially a shopping basket suite of queries, which allows them to get to want they really want under their own steam, using point solution, 'C drive based datawarehouse hell.'

Below are a number of tactics we can adopt to design a BI suite that the business really wants...and will really use!! 

• Align BI  to the business strategy before the project hits the road
• Work as a team - break down the users and IT divisions, they don't help anyone
• Forget the reporting status quo and get in the business' shoes
• Peacock BI - make it attractive
• Make the business masters of their own destiny - allow them to be EMPOWERMENT mad!!

Align to business strategy - be clear on the impact on the bottom line up front

Successful business change management or business transformation will begin long before the project charter is composed.  A key element of this process is defining success.  Sounds good, but what does this really mean, and perhaps more importantly, how do I do it?

Effective transformation precedes the project, as part of the business change process.  During development of the business case the senior sponsors should be helped to describe success in terms of the organisation's overall business goals... hen assign BI deliverables to the business' strategic objectives.  By doing this, the project team tangibly aligns BI to driving the business forwards.  This can be recorded in the business case and tracked as part of benefits management.  The more quantitative these goals are, the more impact and transparency the organisation will get from benefits tracking.

Ronseal BI - surely we just develop what's written on the spec?

What I refer to as Ronseal approach (brilliant for fences, decking etc) seldom works for BI.  Asking the business to specify what reports they want, document that and whizz over the wall to developers usually ends in disappointment. I think this classic illustration summarises this well.

So, why does this happen?  It is largely because the business is unaware of the art of the possible.  Bluefin's agile, collaborative approach addresses this well.  Using a series of iterative prototypes allows the users to understand what they can do, which in turn triggers ideas of how to beef up reports that really addresses the questions they need answers for. This alone is a fabulous result with a massively positive impact on the quality of the report suite.  However, another important outcome of this is that the worlds of business and the technical team overlap significantly and from the beginning. 

Forget the past - find out what the business users want

Throughout these engagements with the business, it is crucial to focus on what is needed to drive those strategic business objectives. When talking to customers I frequently refer to the door stop month end report pack. This is the dearth of pages printed every month which, somehow, get summarised, frequently via 'C drive datawarehouse hell' and are then distributed across the business.  This often leads to statistics bingo at the start of management meetings when the team spends valuable time deciding who has the correct numbers...  Does this strike a chord? The fact is that most businesses don't in fact harbour a pathological disdain of trees, but instead, in the absence of anything better, make the best of what they have. 

I think there's plenty of comedy potential for a BI remake of Mel Gibson's and Helen Hunt's 2000 film What Women Want. Without wanting to spoil this 'classic' for those of you who haven't seen it, a chauvinist womaniser tries to get into women's heads by experiencing what is like to be a woman, it did include wearing heels...with hilarious comic results. However formulaic this film was, it is a great analogy for BI.  Really understanding what the business needs to know to perform successfully is important. The collaboration required to deliver an agile project goes a long way to achieve this.  However, to press the point forward you need to know what the end game looks like. 

Start with the end in mind:  Another analogy is illustrated below.

As a child I always loved to tackle a good maze, and I would diligently start at one of the entrances to find my way to the middle. But, we all know that the quickest way to achieve this is to start from the middle.  (I still think this is cheating - part of the fun is the lottery!).  A really effective way to achieve this is to 'brown paper' a day in the life/ week in the life etc of key roles or key processes.  Part of this will be to identify key reports, decision makers, bottlenecks etc.  If we start by identifying what the end game is then you're well on the way to getting there, giving the business what they want, and NEED, and having the system used. Bang - result!

Peacock BI

Marketeers have developed a whole industry around branding and presenting things as attractive and desirable. Desirability is critical for any product, brand or whatever, and that's because consumers are human beings and we react to our environment emotionally. Let's face it if businesses were run by computers it wouldn't matter that information was summarised, trends identified or reports are attractive enough to command attention.  But business is conducted by humans and it is critical that BI professionals adopt ergonomic design principles, and no, this doesn't involve bucket seats. The guru in this area is Stephen Few, who shares this knowledge through his website. 

The good news is that the integration of SAP BW with SAP BusinessObjects, has provided a well needed facelift to SAP's reporting front end.  Tools such as Crystal ("pixel perfect"), SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard (the product formerly known as Xcelsius) and the all new Analysis (Microsoft version available now), to name but a few, are all fabulous in delivering the critical information in a professional format.  As we all know perception is reality and a good looking report will go a long way to encourage the business to take notice and use it.

Empowerment mad - degree of influence directly correlates to level of ownership

Back to those shopping basket BI queries - why does the business do this? 

• Is it because they enjoy slaving over macros every month anxiously trying to get their figures to align with those of Bob in accounts down the corridor? 
• Have they got nothing better to do with their time? 
• Do they think the look and feel of Excel/ Access is the optimum presentation for management information?  

I doubt it.  In my experience the business will do this to avoid pain...the pain of trying to engage with IT which often has a rather large turning circle when it comes to satisfying report requests.  Sometimes it's just quicker for the business to do it themselves, however they need to muddle through.  But they often do muddle through and errors become systemic, and the integrity of the data is often significantly compromised, which can go unnoticed for months.

Put the business in the driving seat.

Change management research has shown that the more influence you give to the business, the higher the level of ownership they will feel.    So to position your BI project for success, get the business in the driving seat.  There are a number of ways to empower the business.

• Use the agile approach to drive overt business collaboration to design the reporting suite
• Use of SAP BusinessObjects tools, such as Web Intelligence which are designed around the business user - allowing them to be self sufficient
• Develop business BI champions from the initiation phase, who will be BI ambassadors and act as super users and trainers
• Roll out BI road shows, run by the business, talking the business' language and taken around the business

Place the business users front and centre, align with strategic goals and start with the end in mind

So, in summary, all business users will tell you that a blank piece of paper can be quite a foe to face.  However, using as many of the tactics described above, will help to steer your BI project to success.  But this doesn't just happen, it takes discipline, tenacity and focus, and often some steely determination to stop the business falling back on the comforting but largely useless door stop reporting, which is the reporting status quo.

By embracing the tactics above you will equip IT with empathy of the business, and the business of IT (!).  By using the agile approach to deliver BI deliverables aligned to the company strategy, and taking advantage of the empowerment offered by SAP BusinessObjects front end tools you're onto a winner - you can give the users what they want and maximise the chances that they'll use it! Bullseye!!!

So, what next, well I think Walt Disney sums this up well with "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing".