Best Practice – Pick the Technology Last

When implementing a business intelligence system, I would recommend that you pick your database platform and business intelligence reporting tool last. I hear that people have already picked the platform they are going to build upon, but they have no idea what they are going to build.

If you are implementing a BI project from scratch, keep in mind that the platforms your solution will run on will be a very small portion of the overall project. There is a lot of details that have to be specified before you can begin thinking about building the solution.

What are the Key performance indicators?

How do you calculate those KPI’s?

How do the metrics roll up?

What level of granularity do the metrics need to be stored at?

What dimensions do they need to be sliced by?

What are your plans for a date dimension?

Fiscal calendar?

If you don’t have these things I mentioned above, it doesn’t matter what tools  you pick. They will be useless.

–Don’t stop

Red Flag Series – Management Doesn’t want to Deal with the Details

I am currently involved in a project that will more than likely be less than successful from my point of view. This company will function and continue to thrive regardless of the effectiveness of this project. As of right now, this project is on-going and will continue for quite a few years. But, the return on the expenditures for this project will be dismal.

This business intelligence project involves three different groups of people from three different departments and all three have different opinions of what the project is and the way it should be implemented. In additional to these three different opinions, these three groups have also been involved in an internal political struggle for control over the project. Each group cannot vary from their position without a perceived loss of power within the organization.

Where the disconnect is occurring is in the details. My direct supervisor made a statement recently where he said, “I don’t have time to get into the details. Frankly, I shouldn’t have to.” This is a big problem. The project is having interdepartmental communication issues about very specific details, and the manager over the project doesn’t believe he should not have to deal with it.

Why these issues are occurring in the first place has to do with the knowledge of the methods by which you implement a business intelligence system. These two parties have never implemented a BI system before and are unaware of the nomenclature and methodologies that used during implementation. The one manager explicitly stated that he has no idea about the kind of work we do, but proceeds to tell us that we are doing our job wrong.

I am not looking for a manager that is in the details. I actually push back against that kind of behavior. It isn’t pretty. However, when there are team issues and interdepartmental issues, management needs to get involved at whatever level of detail that is necessary. Once that issue is resolved, I expect management to step back and let us do our jobs.

–Don’t stop

The Matrix Environment

I’m not talking about the movie. I’m referring to the leadership and management scenario where you are responsible for accomplishing work, but have not direct authority to make it happen. This is the world I live in every single day.

The impetus for this post comes from an article that talks about the leadership skills necessary to run an organization that is set up in a matrix. This article says that leaders that know how to function in this environment are rare. That is because these leaders need to be very good at the following 4 skills/traits.

1. Empathy
2. Conflict Management
3. Influence
4. Self Awareness

The most interesting distinction about those four skills is that they are all learned. If you want to improve on those four skills, realize that it is impossible to do all at once. It will take time. I would suggest starting with self awareness.

Once you understand that you are responsible for how the world perceives you, the rest is easy. I have had people argue with me about the issue of perception control because most people believe that they have no control over how others perceive them. You don’t directly have control over how others make decisions, but you definitely have control over what you present and in what manner.

The technology portion of business intelligence projects are easy to implement. It’s the people that are hard.

–Don’t stop