| Limiting Business Intelligence Project Failures: Some Practical Hints, Part 1 |
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This two-part series provides some general hints into how organizations can limit the risk associated with their BI projects. Many studies have been conducted related to the number of IT project failures and their causes. Whether due to not meeting budgetary requirements or timelines, or because of scope changes and unrealistic expectations, the reality is that every organization has encountered failure at some point within an IT-related project. All projects have risks associated with them, but there are always ways to mitigate these risks and to ensure that overall project success is more likely. General examples include developing efficient project management techniques, while others involve proper scope identification and stakeholder inclusion. More specifically, business intelligence (BI) projects can encounter the same types of difficulties as other IT projects due to the fact that BI infrastructure requires the same resources and considerations as IT projects. This two-part series provides some general hints into how organizations can limit the risk associated with their BI projects. Although general principles, many organizations make the mistake of managing company projects separately without a single project management strategy. To better assess project scope, risk, timeframes and the like, organizations should maintain a standard form of managing and monitoring their BI projects while continuously evaluating their current style against project successes and failures to ensure constant improvements. Although ensuring project success can be complicated, there are 5 areas that provide some insights into how businesses can implement successful BI projects. Part 1 of this series looks at the first two – the importance of developing a scope and setting realistic expectations. Part 2 covers the remaining three, taking a look at data architecture and associated considerations, the importance of the customer and developing enterprise-class BI initiatives. Scope Development and Management The first aspect of any BI initiative is the development of a scope to identify the business issue precipitating the key BI driver. The need for BI differs based on organization, industry, IT infrastructure, business need and current environment. To make sure a business is implementing or expanding their BI for the right reasons, it becomes important to look at what is happening within the organization and where gaps exist. Is there a lack of visibility into day-to-day operations? Do decision makers have access to the information they need when they need it? Is the information received actionable, or do reports lead to new questions without the ability to answer them? Are effective business decisions being made based on accurate data and collaboration across the organization? These questions represent a subset of questions that provide a general view into what companies face when considering business intelligence – a lack of information availability and visibility, the inability to make informed decisions, data issues, etc. In most cases, the use of BI becomes important for an organization when they can no longer effectively manage their business and make decisions due to the inaccessibility of information. In some cases, this begins with a specific business pain such as a lack of visibility into the increase of customer churn; and in other cases, this might involve report consolidation and increased interactivity for enhanced analytics. Either way, businesses require a formal scope statement to identify what problem is being addressed and the goal to be achieved. Without a clearly defined scope, it becomes too easy to get sidetracked and develop something much broader than originally desired or that does not meet the original requirements. Obviously, general flexibility is also important when considering new business requirements. However, because business intelligence is an iterative process, the ability to limit scope means that although the first phase of the project may be smaller, it is easier to develop something right the first time as opposed to trying to include everything at one time, limiting the amount of detail in any one area and the likelihood of overall success. Setting Realistic BI Expectations Setting realistic BI expectations takes proper scope identification one step further. Each project stakeholder has a different perspective on performance within the organization. This includes business rules, customers, product management, supply chain, distribution, services, etc. Therefore, to avoid discrepancies in requirements gathering and implementation, businesses need to set realistic expectations related to what will be accomplished within their BI implementation or expansion. This means developing cohesion among project stakeholders and creating a phased approach to BI usage. For instance, first implementations may involve setting up a data warehousing infrastructure and developing analytics for planning or risk mitigation. Even though intentions exist for ad hoc reporting and sales dashboards, implementing these tools might not be realistic as a first step. Each business unit may want to adopt and use BI immediately; but for an organization to develop a solution that best meets their business requirements, it is recommended to take a phased approach and make sure that each aspect – from infrastructure to reporting and analytics – is implemented successfully before attempting to move on to the next step. The difficulty of developing BI in stages is due to the inability to identify what BI requirements will be in the future. A phased approach can be a good place to start; but as business intelligence is applied within the organization, the types of interactions and decisions that will need to be made cannot be anticipated. In addition, with the promise of better data visibility, no decision maker is going to want to wait for something to come in the future when they feel it could benefit them now. Consequently, this is where setting expectations becomes most important. Anticipating future BI usage, expansion, and general requirements should be balanced with general stakeholder expectations. For certain organizations combining scope definition and setting general hopes for the project outcome falls within a project management infrastructure and through using a project roadmap. This can then be used to make sure that project goals are met and that the company’s high-level BI needs are met. Take Away Although not specific to BI, developing a project scope and setting proper project expectations creates a starting point for a successful BI implementation. Without either, companies are searching for a solution or an expansion to what is currently in house without the proper focus of how the project will actually benefit productivity. Unfortunately these simple steps to help get a project to start and stay on-track are often overlooked. Even though BI implementations can still succeed without a formalized project management methodology, the reality is that organizations should create a balance between being dynamic and formalizing processes that will lead to a phased approach to business intelligence implementation and adoption. Published by B-Eye-Network.com on July 10, 2010 Written by Lindsay Wise Lyndsay is the President and Founder of WiseAnalytics, an independent analyst firm specializing in business intelligence, master data management and unstructured data. For more than seven years, she has assisted clients in business systems analysis, software selection and implementation of enterprise applications. Lyndsay conducts regular research studies, consults, writes articles and speaks about improving the value of business intelligence within organizations. |