As if this wasn't bad enough, along came a vendor selling a data extract tool who proposed to the IS department the installation of a quick prototype of a data warehouse to show how easy it was to build data warehouses. This resulted in the IS department buying the data extract tool and commissioning a project to deploy a data mart based on the prototype to the finance department, using the aforementioned state-of-the-art shelfware data visualisation tool to deliver a few neat dashboards and sexy cubes. The project took a little longer to do than the prototype suggested (note: they always do!) and the total cost came to several hundred thousand dollars but it was an ultra leading-edge architecture using the latest, greatest tools so it was going to delight the end user community.
Problem was, the end user community wasn't involved until near the go-live date. They had no input into any requirements analysis, they weren't involved in the selection of tools and their management had not been informed of this development until long after the purchasing decisions were made. In addition, several requirements brought on by recent changes in the industry were not incorporated into the solution by the IS people because they were too busy playing with cool technology to see what was happening at the industry coalface.
The result? The solution was ill-conceived, not fit for purpose, the insight being presented by the solution was not believed by those who make decisions with it and senior finance department management had no will to make it right because they had no involvement during its development and therefore no skin in the game. The finance guys just carried on with their manually produced Excel spreadsheets and the whizz-bang BI solution was shut down.
Needless to say, these guys are a little "BI Shy" now.
This story highlights a typical problem we see in the BI space - only a small fraction of the prerequisites of a successful BI project are addressed. In this case, the IS guys assumed that the latest BI technology was the sole requirement for a successful BI project. This is a very common misconception.
There is a whole lot more to BI than technology. Decisions need to be made not just with respect to technology, but more importantly with reference to business processes, data, and the people involved in a BI solution.
When it all boils down, we know from decades of experience that there are seven discreet requirements for a successful BI project. We refer to these as the Seven Essentials for BI Success:
- Governance;
- Engagement Model;
- Delivery Model
- Performance Insight;
- Information Architecture;
- Data Management;
- and of course,Technology.
Over the next few posts, Stellar's BI experts will discuss the seven essentials for BI success in some detail, so stay tuned!
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