“If I’m at Starbucks doing business intelligence via
WiFi with my laptop, is that Mobile BI? If so, if I do the same thing at
work, what is that?” That question started the discussion at one of my
recent Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats.
When the tweetchat tribe tried to level set what this booming area of
business intelligence really is, we found some differing opinions.
Mobile BI supports the transient workforce, someone tweeted. No, it’s
mobile because it uses mobile devices and the device facets (GPS,
camera), most agreed. Example: a static BI report delivered to an iPad
is Mobile BI. But another member tweeted that the Microsoft Surface Pro 3
blurs the lines, so we can’t define Mobile BI by devices; it’s just any
portable workflow.
My opinion? Mobile BI allows taking fact-based insights/information on a mobile device with you to a decision point.
Our annual Wisdom of Crowds Mobile Computing / Mobile Business
Intelligence Market Studies reveal a multi-year trend of growing
interest in Mobile BI as well as growing sophistication on the part of
users.
Almost a year ago at another of my #BIWisdom tweetchats, I asked
participants for examples of where they saw Mobile BI in use. Two folks
observed that they saw Mobile BI only in discrete pockets and use cases.
Having said that, one added that some of the use cases were
strategically critical.
The group in my recent #BIWisdom tweetchat reported they see people
interacting with Mobile BI at airports, on the bus, in stores, at a
supply chain distribution center, while waiting on elevators in an
office building in New York City or getting real-time data on the trade
floor. One of the #BIWisdom group said his client can track 30 percent
of sales directly to the use of Mobile BI for sales productivity.
Someone commented that being able to take BI everywhere and have
continuous accessibility makes up for the slower data speeds on a mobile
device. But another wisely tweeted, “Other than the fact that I can do
BI most anywhere, what does Mobile BI bring that traditional BI can’t?”
One of the group said it’s the ability to interact directly with
surroundings. He shared an example: GPS to filter location, then taking a picture of a store shelf for collaboration.
However, someone else questioned whether that means that
collaboration must be a part of mobile BI for it to be successful. The
group pondered whether mobile BI means moving from “just reporting” to
“true insight” that is based on a collaborative event but decided that
there are definite use cases where mobile BI adds value without
collaboration.
Bottom line: In late 2013, the cost of deploying mobile hardware was
prohibitive to many companies. Security was also a concern, according to
our Wisdom of Crowds market study. At that time many of our survey
participants stated they wanted to use Mobile BI only to view (and
select and filter) information, not interact with it.
Today security is still the top obstacle to greater use of Mobile BI.
Regional regulatory issues (especially in government, healthcare and
banking), are also prominent concerns for Mobile BI. Even so, Mobile BI
is moving up in critical priority. It’s also morphing significantly with
new-generation IT infrastructure. Undoubtedly there will be security
breaches – some big. That’s why it’s critical that organizations put
security policy/programs in place.
Our Wisdom of Crowds market studies reveal that mobile is about new
use cases and new UXs; it’s not about porting desktop BI to an external
device. Most existing BI is too data dense to fit on a mobile device, so
a lot of design rethinking is required. But I believe that the maturity
of uses cases and benefits are more important for growing success than
the maturity of Mobile BI technology.
Mobile BI is definitely on the move in user penetration and in vendor
support. Already it’s no longer a market per se; it’s a feature.
Here’s
what I’m watching for:
" I expect we’ll see an intersection of Mobile BI, Cloud BI, and Collaborative BI.
" All needed business intelligence features will be available on mobile devices.
" Eventually “Mobile BI” will become just “mobile” and “mobile” will
just become apps in the same way that “Big Data” will eventually just
become “data.”
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC,
an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders
in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the
term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the
subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results
through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business
Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly
tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory
Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions
and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business
Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Dresner's Point: Can You Have Self-Service BI and Governance Too?
I know what you’re probably thinking after reading the
title of this blog post: the two are obviously a clash of interests,
successful BI requires governance, there’s no middle-of-the road
approach and one side will have to sacrifice its interests. You’re
probably also thinking it poses a serious management challenge.
The dilemma requires some business intelligence wisdom, so I tossed the question out to the BI users, vendors and consultants in one of my Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats after a participant tweeted that he had observed a “quantum shift” to self-service in BI delivery this year.
I asked, “Self-service is important, but what about governance? Can you do both well?”
Their opinions:
- “Yes, you can, but it’s definitely a challenge. And self-service requires even stronger governance.”
- “You have to focus on value creation and shape governance to not get in the way of agility.”
- “Governance involves multiple parallel processes; and the processes need to support, not hinder, the business.”
Those processes and roles of governance include standards, policies and procedures for steering, organizing, implementing and executing BI initiatives. And it involves validating the data and ensuring data security – or as one of the tribe tweeted, “processes to stop people from doing the bad things they are tempted to do with data.”
One of the group commented that it’s important to have tools that “liberate data (for the right reasons); but there are too many tools that, at the same time, also expose the data to abuse.” Another person agreed, tweeting that departmental data discovery tools enable line-of-business user insight, but some centralized control needs to be maintained.
The group agreed that the major part of governance is security control. But they debated what should be controlled. Is it just a matter of who can see what, when, and having the proper security profiles to control that issue? Is it a matter of keeping data locked down until it’s requested and the user and data are vetted? Someone tweeted that this doesn’t seem to align with the intent of self-service BI functionality.
Another tweeted that It’s important to have democratized access to the data and not have it locked up in silos but freely available to the lines of business that need it. And someone responded that there’s nothing wrong with centrally controlling data to ensure proper usage. But another participant commented that there is currently no easy way to transform and load small amounts of data into self-service tools.
The tweets about the role of governance regarding security ignited an important question, especially when considered in the realm of self-service BI: Does governance also cover data quality? After all, bad data leads to bad decisions. The #BIWisdom tribe concluded that data quality will always be an issue in BI, and good MDM practices can mitigate the issue. Several tweeted opinions that it’s important to expose bad data. And one of the tribe pointed out that there is “no such thing as bad data; there is only bad information. The same data can be turned into useful information in a different use case.”
They concluded in agreement that the the central problem of governance is ownership of the data and the BI initiatives. And most companies don’t have a formal way of approaching this. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Where there is no ownership, there is no accountability.
Bottom line: From my years of studying successes and failures in business intelligence governance, I recommend that organizations first evaluate how their various stakeholders might use, and could benefit from, the information the data yields. Leadership need to consider risks and vulnerabilities along with advantages and then develop a comprehensive approach to governance – including self-service functionalities. It’s also important to keep in mind that, even in a self-service mode, the information/insights may be applicable and cross over to multiple areas of the organization.
As I’ve seen time and again, the best way to take this comprehensive approach is to establish a BI Competency Center (BICC). The top activities for a BICC, according to respondents in our annual Wisdom of Crowds Market Studies are analytical model development, database design/management and project management. I believe that user education also should be a primary objective for a BICC.
So, yes, you can do self-service and governance well. If the BICC (or other non-siloed governance mechanisms) is effective and relevant to the enterprise business, self-service BI functionalities won’t be a vulnerability.
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
The dilemma requires some business intelligence wisdom, so I tossed the question out to the BI users, vendors and consultants in one of my Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats after a participant tweeted that he had observed a “quantum shift” to self-service in BI delivery this year.
I asked, “Self-service is important, but what about governance? Can you do both well?”
Their opinions:
- “Yes, you can, but it’s definitely a challenge. And self-service requires even stronger governance.”
- “You have to focus on value creation and shape governance to not get in the way of agility.”
- “Governance involves multiple parallel processes; and the processes need to support, not hinder, the business.”
Those processes and roles of governance include standards, policies and procedures for steering, organizing, implementing and executing BI initiatives. And it involves validating the data and ensuring data security – or as one of the tribe tweeted, “processes to stop people from doing the bad things they are tempted to do with data.”
One of the group commented that it’s important to have tools that “liberate data (for the right reasons); but there are too many tools that, at the same time, also expose the data to abuse.” Another person agreed, tweeting that departmental data discovery tools enable line-of-business user insight, but some centralized control needs to be maintained.
The group agreed that the major part of governance is security control. But they debated what should be controlled. Is it just a matter of who can see what, when, and having the proper security profiles to control that issue? Is it a matter of keeping data locked down until it’s requested and the user and data are vetted? Someone tweeted that this doesn’t seem to align with the intent of self-service BI functionality.
Another tweeted that It’s important to have democratized access to the data and not have it locked up in silos but freely available to the lines of business that need it. And someone responded that there’s nothing wrong with centrally controlling data to ensure proper usage. But another participant commented that there is currently no easy way to transform and load small amounts of data into self-service tools.
The tweets about the role of governance regarding security ignited an important question, especially when considered in the realm of self-service BI: Does governance also cover data quality? After all, bad data leads to bad decisions. The #BIWisdom tribe concluded that data quality will always be an issue in BI, and good MDM practices can mitigate the issue. Several tweeted opinions that it’s important to expose bad data. And one of the tribe pointed out that there is “no such thing as bad data; there is only bad information. The same data can be turned into useful information in a different use case.”
They concluded in agreement that the the central problem of governance is ownership of the data and the BI initiatives. And most companies don’t have a formal way of approaching this. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Where there is no ownership, there is no accountability.
Bottom line: From my years of studying successes and failures in business intelligence governance, I recommend that organizations first evaluate how their various stakeholders might use, and could benefit from, the information the data yields. Leadership need to consider risks and vulnerabilities along with advantages and then develop a comprehensive approach to governance – including self-service functionalities. It’s also important to keep in mind that, even in a self-service mode, the information/insights may be applicable and cross over to multiple areas of the organization.
As I’ve seen time and again, the best way to take this comprehensive approach is to establish a BI Competency Center (BICC). The top activities for a BICC, according to respondents in our annual Wisdom of Crowds Market Studies are analytical model development, database design/management and project management. I believe that user education also should be a primary objective for a BICC.
So, yes, you can do self-service and governance well. If the BICC (or other non-siloed governance mechanisms) is effective and relevant to the enterprise business, self-service BI functionalities won’t be a vulnerability.
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Dresner’s Point: Don’t Overlook the Zigzagging of Collaboration & Text Analytics
Missed the boat. Didn’t gather enough steam. All that glitters isn’t gold. These pronouncements are often the verdict when technology evolves quickly and some functionalities or features don’t grab a strong enough hold quickly enough in the market. But applying that verdict to collaboration BI as well as social media and text analytics would be a mistake, even though they haven’t met expectations.
Collaboration BI
At one of my weekly #BIWisdom tweetchats this month, collaboration, social media and text analytics turned up in a discussion about 2013 BI predictions that didn’t pan out. The tweets started with one of the tribe commenting that “every year we hear collaboration BI will take off — but has it?”
I commented to the group that our annual Wisdom of Crowds® Business Intelligence Market Study revealed in 2013 that collaboration in BI is hotter than ever, but it declined somewhat in favor of email as the preferred collaboration tool.
That was quickly followed up with a participant’s tweet that she saw two new BI products this month that offer collaboration as their core feature.
Then came a bunch of opinions from the group on why collaborative BI is difficult to adopt. Here’s their collective viewpoint:
• “Collaboration must have a foundation in the business; it’s not something that can be pushed from a BI tool.”
• “Collaboration is a business issue, not a BI issue. Technology is a facilitator, not the solution.”
• “True BI equals transparency. It tends to let the skeletons out of the closet.”
• “Many adoption issues are related a cultural shift. The technology highlights how poor change management is in many organizations. Prior to implementing the collaboration technology, the lack of change management was hidden below the surface.”
• “Collaboration is a business issue, not a BI issue. Technology is a facilitator, not the solution.”
• “True BI equals transparency. It tends to let the skeletons out of the closet.”
• “Many adoption issues are related a cultural shift. The technology highlights how poor change management is in many organizations. Prior to implementing the collaboration technology, the lack of change management was hidden below the surface.”
I agree! In fact I wrote a book about the Achilles heel in BI performance: success requires change management, not just technology.
Text analytics and social media
These two aspects of BI products have bagged some successes, yet our 2013 Wisdom of Crowds® Business Intelligence Market Study indicated a failing interest in both social media and text analytics. I asked the #BIWisdom tribe of buyers, vendors and consultants for their opinions on the factors behind this finding.
Here’s their real-world wisdom:
The value
• “Analysts have said there is more to be gained in ‘dark data’ around the enterprise than in social media data/sentiment.”
• “But what analysts say and what business wants sometimes differs. It’s a question of perspectives and relative value.”
• “But what analysts say and what business wants sometimes differs. It’s a question of perspectives and relative value.”
The technology
• “I’m not sure the state-of-the-art technology is good enough yet.”
• “Text analysis and social media require extra effort, which increases the time to value. Vendors need to automate and decrease that effort.”
• “I tested a social analytics tool; I was less than impressed. It was keyboard based and turned up a lot of false positives.”
• “This needs more machine learning algorithms than most tools use today. Social analytics that lack natural language and sentiment analysis are of very limited value. Keywords won’t cut it.”
• “In text analytics the ability to combine analysis of text + numbers is key.”
• “Point-in-time relevance is an important component of using text and social media data. The data gets stale too quickly. Need speed.”
• “Text analysis and social media require extra effort, which increases the time to value. Vendors need to automate and decrease that effort.”
• “I tested a social analytics tool; I was less than impressed. It was keyboard based and turned up a lot of false positives.”
• “This needs more machine learning algorithms than most tools use today. Social analytics that lack natural language and sentiment analysis are of very limited value. Keywords won’t cut it.”
• “In text analytics the ability to combine analysis of text + numbers is key.”
• “Point-in-time relevance is an important component of using text and social media data. The data gets stale too quickly. Need speed.”
The demand
• “We keep hearing from clients that they want it!”
• “Companies want it but aren’t really sure what they need. I think it will be like CRM in the 1990s, a distracting shiny object until it’s better understood.”
• “It’s not like ERP data analysis, but we find the interest is still there. The question is how to do it well.”
• “Companies want it but aren’t really sure what they need. I think it will be like CRM in the 1990s, a distracting shiny object until it’s better understood.”
• “It’s not like ERP data analysis, but we find the interest is still there. The question is how to do it well.”
Bottom line: What can we conclude from the fact that adoption of BI collaboration, social media and text analytics fell short of expectations in 2013? Don’t count them out of the picture. Although their journey to greater adoption zigzagged over the past year, customers want these functionalities to help create greater value as they build on their prior business intelligence successes. In fact, text analytics had a strong showing in the #BIWisdom group’s plans and aspirations for 2014. These three functionalities in BI technology are not yet in the ninth inning. Look for an upswing in adoption.
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Dresner’s Point: Ready for the “2014ization” of Business Intelligence?
I don’t like making predictions, so rest assured this is not another of a myriad of predictions articles that hit the media annually. Instead, let’s kick start the year with some definite plans and aspirations of companies in the business intelligence sphere. A great place for an insightful, real-world view of BI trends is my weekly #BIWisdom tweetchats with BI customers, vendors and consultants.
What is your organization planning to try to achieve in 2014? When I recently asked the #BIWisdom tribe this question, their tweets made it immediately clear that their companies are gearing up for achieving even greater value from business intelligence than they have to date.
Plans Include:
• More mobile BI
• More BI demos with real-life applications
• Get more into mobile BI as it helps to reach the masses and get closer to “Information Democracy”
• Explore the sharing potential of BI and the power to integrate additional sources at any point in the BI stack
• BI methodology is big on our checklist for this year
• Get up to speed with some of the specialized tools in the BI stack; it’s hard to keep up with the toolsets released so far for data integration, data quality, data management and data security
• Migrating to current versions of BI software; for innovations in BI software you need the newest versions. Examples: user empowerment and the speed of getting answers (not just reports)
• There is a growing interest in data that tells stories; keep up with advances in storyboarding to package visual analytics that might fill some gaps in communication and collaboration
• Monitor rumblings about trend to shift data to secure storage outside the U.S. due to the NSA revelations
• Expand basic BI to more users (not just multi-page dashboards, but targeted BI); mobile BI will certainly drive the expansion
• Have BI super-users engage with others to expand the penetration of BI among users
• Increase use of self-service products to provide more value and increase adoption of BI tools
Aspirations:
• More predictive analytics to learn more about Big Data
• Expand more into embedded BI
• Do more with text analytics; there’s a lot to mine from text analysis
Location intelligence:
The group also tweeted about a new thrust in business intelligence functionality — location intelligence or location analytics. Will it have legs in 2014, I asked? Definitely, they responded.
One person tweeted: “I’m close to this topic and see activity and a lot of interest growing in this area.”
Another tweeted, “Through the use of location analytics organization can see new patterns in their data that graphs and charts don’t reveal.”
Mobile and location are intertwined — two sides of the same coin — so it should have legs this year. Here at Dresner Advisory Services we’ll publish a report on our first Wisdom of Crowds® Market Study on Location Intelligence in February 2014.
Bottom line:
The #BIWisdom tribe’s tweets aren’t mere hopes. These folks are not punching above their weight. They have experienced success with BI so far and are building on that success to mine for greater value.
Judging by their comments, we have new BI trends to monitor as we watch the “2014ization” of BI unfold. Which trends will rise to prominence?
I’d love to know what plans and aspirations your company has for 2014. Please post your comment.
Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® Mobile Computing & Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Dresner’s Point: Why do Some BI Sprouts Lead to Failure?
Over the years of conducting our Wisdom of Crowds®
Business Intelligence Market Study on various aspects of BI the
percentage of respondents that report success with their BI initiatives
increases each time. Yet there are still some that report failures.
Success begets even more success, of course. What enables an outcome of “mission accomplished” and what causes failures? This has been a topic of debates several times in our Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats.
Our market studies consistently reveal that key contributors to success are management commitment, organizational stability, focused implementation and requisite skills. So it follows that the opposite characteristics would lead to failure: lack of management commitment, unstable organization and lack of skills.
But my #BIWisdom tweetchat participants have expanded that picture with their real-world experiences as users, vendors and consultants. In our debates, they swept past the key characteristics and honed in on a central issue — How do organizations decide that a BI implementation failed?
Is the deciding factor that the company does poorly, or that the users are dissatisfied, or is it a combination of both factors? And what constitutes a “user” in this aspect; is it only users with decision authority? Is the deciding factor among end users the fact that vendors say the technology answers problems all on its own and thus there is not enough emphasis on process, training, briefings, change management? Is it the lack of a long-term vision and commitment, which then causes the BI solution to go stale and subsequently be perceived as a failure?
Failure is a relevant term; in some organizations the IT department may say the BI initiative is a success but end users say it’s a failure because they can’t use the tool.
A participant tweeted that evaluating whether or not a BI implementation fails should be like a doctor’s evaluation, checking for various symptoms to determine whether the implementation is “healthy.” From their own experiences, the #BIWisdom participants came up with a list of “symptoms” criteria for evaluating success or failure.
Someone tweeted that user adoption is the only symptom that counts. Someone else stated that it isn’t the only criterion, but it’s the most important one. Another participant disagreed, saying that it’s important that the users adopt a tool that delivers correct data and information.
Another tweeted that early adoption is critical. And someone else countered that an influential stakeholder’s adoption is the most critical factor, adding that “one negative C-level opinion is all it takes for failure.” One person stated that success requires “adoption from the C-suite to the shop floor.”
Several #BIWisdom folks pointed out that each department head in an organization might have different success criteria —ease of use, governance, integration, for example. And several opined that revenue and growth are the most important success criteria.
Another tweeted opinion is that success with BI analytics tools requires corresponding transformation of business processes.
And there was this bit of tweeted wisdom: “Failure is any BI deliverable that doesn’t result in a changed process or decisions. Otherwise, what was the point of the initiative?”
So the discussion shifted to context and actionability as well as measurement of success.
“But how can you measure ‘understanding?’” asked one of the group. “And what if you can’t prove you improved?” Another participant added that some business processes don’t lend themselves to measurement. So it’s “a bit like a scientist’s problem of mere observation impacting results of an experiment,” he added.
I think this tweet sums up the final opinions of the group: “It’s fair to say that evaluation of success or failure is a measurement of whether the BI initiative enabled change. After all, if it just proves your organization is perfect, the expense of evaluating the outcome isn’t justified.”
Bottom line: Of course failures also are learning experiences. But my experience and observation is that in successful organizations business intelligence is how people stay aligned with the mission and strategy.
Therefore, if BI is that crucial to an organization’s success, it begs the question: Does the BI industry do enough to ensure initial customer success with BI tools and solutions?
>> Click here to view our full catalog of Business Intelligence research products <<
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Success begets even more success, of course. What enables an outcome of “mission accomplished” and what causes failures? This has been a topic of debates several times in our Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats.
Our market studies consistently reveal that key contributors to success are management commitment, organizational stability, focused implementation and requisite skills. So it follows that the opposite characteristics would lead to failure: lack of management commitment, unstable organization and lack of skills.
But my #BIWisdom tweetchat participants have expanded that picture with their real-world experiences as users, vendors and consultants. In our debates, they swept past the key characteristics and honed in on a central issue — How do organizations decide that a BI implementation failed?
Is the deciding factor that the company does poorly, or that the users are dissatisfied, or is it a combination of both factors? And what constitutes a “user” in this aspect; is it only users with decision authority? Is the deciding factor among end users the fact that vendors say the technology answers problems all on its own and thus there is not enough emphasis on process, training, briefings, change management? Is it the lack of a long-term vision and commitment, which then causes the BI solution to go stale and subsequently be perceived as a failure?
Failure is a relevant term; in some organizations the IT department may say the BI initiative is a success but end users say it’s a failure because they can’t use the tool.
A participant tweeted that evaluating whether or not a BI implementation fails should be like a doctor’s evaluation, checking for various symptoms to determine whether the implementation is “healthy.” From their own experiences, the #BIWisdom participants came up with a list of “symptoms” criteria for evaluating success or failure.
Someone tweeted that user adoption is the only symptom that counts. Someone else stated that it isn’t the only criterion, but it’s the most important one. Another participant disagreed, saying that it’s important that the users adopt a tool that delivers correct data and information.
Another tweeted that early adoption is critical. And someone else countered that an influential stakeholder’s adoption is the most critical factor, adding that “one negative C-level opinion is all it takes for failure.” One person stated that success requires “adoption from the C-suite to the shop floor.”
Several #BIWisdom folks pointed out that each department head in an organization might have different success criteria —ease of use, governance, integration, for example. And several opined that revenue and growth are the most important success criteria.
Another tweeted opinion is that success with BI analytics tools requires corresponding transformation of business processes.
And there was this bit of tweeted wisdom: “Failure is any BI deliverable that doesn’t result in a changed process or decisions. Otherwise, what was the point of the initiative?”
So the discussion shifted to context and actionability as well as measurement of success.
“But how can you measure ‘understanding?’” asked one of the group. “And what if you can’t prove you improved?” Another participant added that some business processes don’t lend themselves to measurement. So it’s “a bit like a scientist’s problem of mere observation impacting results of an experiment,” he added.
I think this tweet sums up the final opinions of the group: “It’s fair to say that evaluation of success or failure is a measurement of whether the BI initiative enabled change. After all, if it just proves your organization is perfect, the expense of evaluating the outcome isn’t justified.”
Bottom line: Of course failures also are learning experiences. But my experience and observation is that in successful organizations business intelligence is how people stay aligned with the mission and strategy.
Therefore, if BI is that crucial to an organization’s success, it begs the question: Does the BI industry do enough to ensure initial customer success with BI tools and solutions?
>> Click here to view our full catalog of Business Intelligence research products <<
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Dresner’s Point: Does BI Need a Seducing Effect?
I guess
Black Friday, January sales and constant reminders of how many shopping
days are left before Christmas weren’t enough enough to entice shoppers
to hit the stores early and often enough in the holiday season. Now we
even have Pre-Black Friday and Green Monday. These seductive tactics to
entice people with something “special” reminded me of a discussion we
had at one my Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats.
When I asked my Twitter group of BI enthusiasts what would help to rein in more users, it was apparent that they thought more self-service functionality is needed in BI apps. They agreed that vendors have made great strides in self-service BI (SSBI) but also agreed that vendors need to extend SSBI to advanced analytics.
The weekly #BIWisdom tweetchat is my favorite forum for BI discussions because it brings out varying perspectives among users, vendors and consultants and thus usually bubbles up effective real-world ideas. In the following tweets you can see how they painted decision making for improving the SSBI environment:
Should we “dummy down” advanced analytics for end users?
• No matter how good the information is, if a tool is too complex for end users, they won’t use it. They’ll take the path of least resistance. The more BI practitioners hide the complexity, the more users will think it’s easy.
• Complexity can be hidden behind well-designed semantic layers.
• Users want things simple and want what they’re accustomed to daily: Twitter, Google, Apple. And Twitter encourages over-simplification.
Should we train and educate the users better?
• Some tools require near-zero training to use. Pain comes from not understanding the data.
• Assuring data understanding is tough. Even with better visualization, it’s still a difficult problem to solve.
• I just saw a 3D map that could be rotated in a BI app. But does anyone really need that?
• Should it be a zero training approach or contextual help?
• Training in the abstract is tough, but training with live data is close to zero.
• Users have varying needs. They will care about data and information if it’s relevant to their roles. Training is easier if it’s personalized to their role.
Two of the group tweeted a viewpoint that buttonholed the real issue — “It’s funny how BI is becoming part of consumer apps and the app world is showing the IT world that the focus needs to be on UX / IX design; yet BI vendors struggle with adoption.”
The #BIWisdom group agreed this is a critical distinction, especially since a large part of the population is being raised, or switching to, a ‘mobile-first’ approach. The remaining discussion centered on the vendors’ responsibility for SSBI and BI adoption. As you can see, their opinions varied:
• Tools need to be simple and fast, but it’s not all the responsibility of the vendors.
• BI users aren’t always the right people to ask about UX design. Take me, for example: Give me a big table of numbers, and I’m set.
• Letting analysts design the UI results in a poor design.
• A BICC (BI Center of Competency) should include an expert in UX / UI design.
As the tweetchat wound down, they agreed on two aspects.
First, vendors that don’t focus on UX / IX design and self-service functionality risk becoming irrelevant. “That’s the price of entry,” someone commented. Most agreed that vendors aren’t focusing on design and SSBI in their sales pitch.
Second, you can have the best data or information in the world, but “pretty” matters because pretty and easy beat complete and complicated every day of the week. “Develop an ugly dashboard and see what happens to usage,” tweeted one participant. Someone else added, “Even the placement and color of KPIs impacts usability.”
Bottom line: I recognize the validity of all their comments. But I also recognize that problems are often perception more than reality. I believe the issue around self-service BI is an education issue first and a technology issue second.
I believe organizations need more education (and change management), especially focusing on meaningful BI experiences. And I like the community-based approach to developing solutions and UX / IX design; this can make for more durable and more value-producing software. What could be more seductive than higher value and return on investment?
Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® Mobile Computing & Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
When I asked my Twitter group of BI enthusiasts what would help to rein in more users, it was apparent that they thought more self-service functionality is needed in BI apps. They agreed that vendors have made great strides in self-service BI (SSBI) but also agreed that vendors need to extend SSBI to advanced analytics.
The weekly #BIWisdom tweetchat is my favorite forum for BI discussions because it brings out varying perspectives among users, vendors and consultants and thus usually bubbles up effective real-world ideas. In the following tweets you can see how they painted decision making for improving the SSBI environment:
Should we “dummy down” advanced analytics for end users?
• No matter how good the information is, if a tool is too complex for end users, they won’t use it. They’ll take the path of least resistance. The more BI practitioners hide the complexity, the more users will think it’s easy.
• Complexity can be hidden behind well-designed semantic layers.
• Users want things simple and want what they’re accustomed to daily: Twitter, Google, Apple. And Twitter encourages over-simplification.
Should we train and educate the users better?
• Some tools require near-zero training to use. Pain comes from not understanding the data.
• Assuring data understanding is tough. Even with better visualization, it’s still a difficult problem to solve.
• I just saw a 3D map that could be rotated in a BI app. But does anyone really need that?
• Should it be a zero training approach or contextual help?
• Training in the abstract is tough, but training with live data is close to zero.
• Users have varying needs. They will care about data and information if it’s relevant to their roles. Training is easier if it’s personalized to their role.
Two of the group tweeted a viewpoint that buttonholed the real issue — “It’s funny how BI is becoming part of consumer apps and the app world is showing the IT world that the focus needs to be on UX / IX design; yet BI vendors struggle with adoption.”
The #BIWisdom group agreed this is a critical distinction, especially since a large part of the population is being raised, or switching to, a ‘mobile-first’ approach. The remaining discussion centered on the vendors’ responsibility for SSBI and BI adoption. As you can see, their opinions varied:
• Tools need to be simple and fast, but it’s not all the responsibility of the vendors.
• BI users aren’t always the right people to ask about UX design. Take me, for example: Give me a big table of numbers, and I’m set.
• Letting analysts design the UI results in a poor design.
• A BICC (BI Center of Competency) should include an expert in UX / UI design.
As the tweetchat wound down, they agreed on two aspects.
First, vendors that don’t focus on UX / IX design and self-service functionality risk becoming irrelevant. “That’s the price of entry,” someone commented. Most agreed that vendors aren’t focusing on design and SSBI in their sales pitch.
Second, you can have the best data or information in the world, but “pretty” matters because pretty and easy beat complete and complicated every day of the week. “Develop an ugly dashboard and see what happens to usage,” tweeted one participant. Someone else added, “Even the placement and color of KPIs impacts usability.”
Bottom line: I recognize the validity of all their comments. But I also recognize that problems are often perception more than reality. I believe the issue around self-service BI is an education issue first and a technology issue second.
I believe organizations need more education (and change management), especially focusing on meaningful BI experiences. And I like the community-based approach to developing solutions and UX / IX design; this can make for more durable and more value-producing software. What could be more seductive than higher value and return on investment?
Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® Mobile Computing & Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
Dresner’s Point: How to Move the Needle in User Adoption
The topic of how to increase user adoption of business intelligence technologies generated a lot of opinions in a recent Friday #BIWisdom tweetchat.
The tweets started with opinions about what hampers user adoption. Some tweeted that the tangling of BI into the Big Data space causes confusion, it’s a mistake to try to get end users to adopt “analyst tools” and we must stop force-feeding generic analysis tools to end users even if they are “simple” to use. Someone tweeted that some organizations make the mistake of working only with power users who may have a vested interest in not expanding adoption to others. Many agreed that trying to change a user’s adoption of and interaction with BI tools on a daily basis is difficult; one tweet compared it to trying to change someone’s religion or belief system.
The conversation turned when a #BIWisdom tribe member stated that “BI encompasses people, process and technology; but most implementations focus on the technology and forget the people and process.” Others then chimed in with:
• BI should just be intuitive and just a part of other apps; users don’t want to think about doing BI
• Predictive analytics adds a lot of value; but it needs to be a part of users’ current desktop app, not a separate app
• Analytics should be placed inside business processes and link to actions rather than making users go to another system
• BI solutions should not be approached from a one-size-fits-all mindset
A participant tweeted that “Vendors need to push toward true self-service functionalities and super-easy user interfaces; self-service lies not in making generic tools simpler to use but in custom interfaces for specific tasks.” This tweet sparked comments comparing BI apps to mobile apps, as apps on smart phones and apps are very task oriented, enticing and focus on the end user. Mobile apps have the characteristics that “good BI” should have: agile, visual, interactive and intuitive. Unfortunately this seldom occurs.
Some tweeted that perhaps we should apply the mobile app model to business intelligence. Another participant added that “Every hour of training needed for BI technology cuts user adoption by at least 50 percent — compare that to the quick adoption of iPads and other tablets, which need no manual or training course.”
In the end, the group concluded that there is not enough focus on incentives. They agreed that bad analysis often goes unpunished and good analysis often goes unrewarded. “People who use BI technology well should be made into organizational heroes in internal communications and should be rewarded,” tweeted a tribe member. Organizations should praise people who demonstrate transparency and accountability as both are essential in an effective BI environment.
Along that line, someone added that organizations should also “identify employees who are against the necessary change management necessary to build a corporate culture that embraces fact-based analysis and accountability and then communicate to them the value/benefits of leveraging BI. That aligns with my own observation over the years that, without top-down strategic change management, an organization will not widely adopt BI.
Bottom line: A lot has changed, and the way we use technology today is vastly different from 20 years ago or even a decade ago. But one thing has not changed: technology adoption must be driven top down. If the CEO and other CxOs don’t believe in the technology, nobody else will either. My observance is that CxOs must embrace the technology; when they believe it is critical to their personal success, everyone else will get on board too. As soon as there is a hint that maybe the technology is not strategically important, people will treat it with denial and neglect.
There are some things that can be done to “move the needle” in BI user adoption, but nothing is as impactful as getting the CEO on board.
Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® Mobile Computing & Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study
Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.
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