“BI strategy? We don’t need no stink’en BI strategy!”

I just read Rob Collie’s posting about a Forrester report. And I just have to jump in with my two cents:

http://blogs.forrester.com/business_process/2009/11/ten-strong-hints-your-enterprise-may-not-have-a-bi-strategy.html
by Boris Evelson

1. Your end users keep pointing to IT as the source of most BI problems – Oh, the blame game. It can be hot and furious. The very fact that end users feel that they have to point anywhere means that the barrier between them and IT is too high and is getting in the way of solving problems.
2. Your business executives view BI as another cost center – So long as companies look at BI as an organization entity, this will continue to be an issue.
3. IT staff keep asking end users for report requirements – Actually what this indicates is that there is even a stronger barrier between IT and your end-users. The IT department should know enough about the business that they don’t need to know about report requirements, but rather should act as advisors and data counselors to make end users more successful. Thus IT is viewed as part of the solution – and not the problem itself (see #1)
4. Your BI is supported by IT help desk – Meaning that BI is a computer system now, or an application. This is just plain wrong.
5. You can’t tell the difference between BI and Performance Management – Where is Dilbert when you need him to point out the use of the latest buzz words.
6. You can’t measure your BI usage – Need I say PowerPivot? The “managed” part of “managed self-service” is all about collecting usage information from end users. However each time I talk about this, I keep trying to tell the IT folks that they shouldn’t use this as a big stick over their end users, i.e. some kind of compliance ‘report’ to hit them over the head when they do something that IT thinks is ‘wrong’. Instead they should use the usage information as an opportunity to have a dialog with their end users concerning how they are using the system. If end users see this ‘usage’ as part of a kind of big brother monitoring of their behavior then you will just scare them back to using their desktop tools.
7. You can’t measure your BI ROI – Hmm. I don’t know if I agree with this one. Too often ROI means engaging with a bean counter. I am enough of a geek that I think that a successful system should just “feel” successful. The true measure of success is that if you threaten to turn it off, your users stage a revolt.
   “ROI? We don’t need no stink’en ROI!”
8. You think your BI strategy is the same as your DW strategy – BI is about how you use and apply information; not how you store it. But I agree at a certain level. BI should be something that is closer to the end users; not something that is in the glass house.
9. You don’t have a plan to develop, hire, retain and grow BI staff – As a BI Pro I like this one! Anything that gets me more money, power and prestige, I like. Where does the solving of business problems come into play . . . ?? I think that Boris is a bit too obvious here.
10. (My personal favorite) You actually don’t know if your enterprise has a BI strategy! – Hmm. Did Boris ever define what at BI strategy is? Again where is Dilbert when you need him?

Cool stuff.