Most of us are familiar with the book or movie of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and of one particular exchange that occurs between Alice and the most mysterious Cheshire cat. In the Wonderland book by Lewis Carroll the exchange is more involved than what is depicted in the movie so I will paraphrase the conversation in parts. When Alice asks the cat which way she should go, he replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to go." Alice's response is that she doesn't much care where she wants to go as long as she goes somewhere. The cat responds to Alice that if she doesn't care where she goes, then it really doesn't matter which way she goes - As long as she walks long enough, she is sure to get somewhere.
This exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat reminds me of many BI implementations that I have been involved with in my career. These days, when we speak of data projects, there are many ‘Buzzwords’ that consume the market place. Whether we are talking of Big Data, Machine Learning, AI, Metadata Management, Predictive Analytics, Data Automation, or the many others that are out there; the important thing is that these topics are on the minds of business leadership. The good thing about these buzzwords is just that – they are creating buzz within organizations and industries that previously have not dedicated time and resources to managing data and generating analytics. The adverse effect of these buzzwords is that they are creating an environment where organizational leadership hear these concepts and task their reports to implement. This is where we circle back to our friend Alice who knew she wanted to go somewhere without having a defined vision of exactly where she wanted to go. For a young girl, lost in a fantastic world, that methodology is bound to create some exciting new adventures but taking a similar approach in business can lead to high software and resource costs without having added any business value in the end.
The first step to implementing a successful BI project is to understand the Key Business Questions that leadership is wanting to answer. Those Key Business Questions are those that, when answered, are going to drive company profits and efficiencies. This is getting an understanding of the ‘What’. The ‘What’ is understanding the overall goals and objectives of the company in undergoing a BI implementation. What are the pain points? What are the questions that need to be answered? How can we best manage by exception? What exceptions need to be seen in order to quickly course correct? Are you looking for more timely reports? Perhaps you lack confidence in the data being provided and you want to ensure quality of the data. Are you not able to gain insights across multiple systems? Is it just too costly on a weekly basis to create the necessary reports to run your business? There must be some reason for implementing a BI tool and we need to first identify what those reasons are. It could be multiple factors mentioned or perhaps others that weren't mentioned but ultimately there are always pain points to be fixed when it comes to data.
It is important for the ‘What’ the be separated from the ‘How’. The ‘How’ refers to the strategy of how the ‘What’ is going to be addressed. Will it require Big Data? Perhaps getting at the ‘What’, we need to implement Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning. All of these decisions of ‘How’ must be derived from the ‘What’; however, too often, we see the opposite occur and purchase software that will help us become more “intelligent” in Machine Learning but we don’t understand what we need it for or how it is going to help us. Also, while it is extremely important for the ‘What’ to come from leadership, it is just as important that leadership then trust the technical and data resources to determine the strategy of how to implement.
Don’t allow the business to be run by buzzwords. Let the buzzwords create seeds in the minds of leadership but always bring it back to the overall goals are of the BI project and let strategy be determined based off those goals.