Power BI: A Visual Advantage Over Your Competitors

We are all familiar with the game of chess. Each piece having a specific moving pattern and role to the game. Depending on how the player moves the piece, even the simplest pawn can be the difference between winning or losing a game. It takes knowledge to master the game of chess because each piece operates in a different fashion that when used to its fullest potential can constitute a win. Just like in chess if we use a visual tool (chess piece) for our data such as Power BI it will give us the knowledge needed to allow more critical and intelligent business decisions to be made. Just as we are all familiar with chess, we are all also familiar with the more simplistic game of checkers. In checkers, all pieces have the same roles and you have limited movements. The same is true with our data, if it is not organized in an effective visual manner than no matter how long we stare at it we will only be able to see checker pieces and make simplistic/reactionary decisions. 

Power BI Advantage

Microsoft’s Power BI is one of the most powerful data visualizers on the market. Many companies get by using Excel to organize their data and generate visuals to help them understand the data. Even though Excel is very powerful you are limited to the game of checkers rather than chess. Power BI will connect to almost any data source available. Once connected it will establish a connection that will allow automatic refreshing, so we never have to worry about having the most current data again. Just like in chess there are all different types of pieces to play with, Power BI will give you access to their complete suite of visuals that will allow us to create very informative dashboards. These dashboards will give us an advantage over our competitors and allow us to make more critical and intelligent business decisions.  

Play Chess Not Checkers

We do not want to be caught playing checkers while our competitors are playing chess. With everything that is going on each company needs to be performing at their best and it can be hard to do that when we are reactionarily playing checkers with specific moves. When we have a tool such as Power BI give us a better view of the situation then we can take that knowledge and give us a competitive advantage over other businesses. We are all fighting for the same pie. Why run in and fight your competitors for the same sliver when a giant piece is sitting off to the side waiting for someone to take it? Power BI will allow us to make intelligent and calculated moves to strengthen our company’s position. All we need to ask ourselves is: Are we playing chess or checkers with our business?

Knowing the Strategic Vision of the Project

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.

How to Implement a Successful Business Intelligence Platform

W. Edwards Deming (Engineer, Statistician, Professor, Author, Lecturer and Management Consultant) said, "In God we trust; all others bring data." With that quote in mind, I have often heard of a Gartner report that between 70% to 80% of Business Intelligence projects fail.  I usually stick with the mantra that "90% of all statistics are made up on the spot"; However, in my experience that statistic does not seem too far off.  I have dedicated my life and career to data and to business intelligence because there is so much power in the ability to back up words, ideas and thoughts with meaningful data and analytics.  I know how important data is to business and how much of a competitive advantage can be derived from knowing key indicators that drive the bottom line.

I can't speak to the complete accuracy of the notion that upwards of 80% of business intelligence projects fail but in my professional experience in having worked with hundreds of clients in their Business Intelligence endeavors, I can certainly attest to the fact that the failure rate is high.  There are several key factors that I have seen in my career as to why these projects either don't get off of the ground, lose momentum, fail to prove ROI or are simply rejected for various reasons in the end.  I certainly don't pretend to know all of the reasons why a project may fail and I can't list all of the pieces a project must have in order to be successful.  I have, however, identified 9 steps that have been beneficial both to me and to my clients as we have gone through the journey of BI.  Over the next several weeks, I'm going to expound on each of those 9 steps - why they are important and where the potential pitfalls are in each one of them.  As I go through this process, I welcome any feedback or thoughts that others can provide.  I want to reiterate, I don't pretend to be able to give the end all solution but I hope to provide some thought provoking insight into the world of Business Intelligence.

IDENTIFY KEY STAKEHOLDERS

The first step in creating a successful analytics program is identifying the key people who will be involved in both the project and the use of the application.  First is identifying the various types of stakeholders who may be involved. This could range from the Executive Sponsor (CEO, CMO, COO, etc…) to the Analytics Director or to the business analyst who is used to generating manual reports on a daily or weekly basis.

The importance of integrating Project Sponsors at the management level cannot be overstated.  Executive buyoff for the project is integral in the overall success of the project as clear expectations and common goals need to be made at this level.  It is also important to sell current capabilities when discussing the high prioritized items that are needed for quick wins and momentum gains within the first weeks of the project.  I have seen too often where future capabilities are sold without the ability to execute and it quickly derails the project, creates distrust in the relationship and removes the feeling of being a true partner to achieve common goals.

It is also important to understand what pieces of the project are important for each person within the team.  For an executive sponsor, they are going to want to see metrics at a high level that will give them the ability to ask necessary questions that are important to the overall success of the company.  Next, for an analytics director or business analyst, it is important that they have the ability to further dive down into the data to get at the 'WHY' of the questions that are being asked from the higher management.  Ease of access, speed to insight and ROI are also going to be very important to the executive sponsors; Whereas, integration, data quality, ease of report creation will be items that are important for the data architects and business analysts.

Now that there is an understanding of who is going to be involved in the various aspects of the project and what areas are going to be important for them, it is now imperative to understand how the project is going to affect them in their everyday work.  New processes and technologies have a tendency to make people nervous. They don't understand what it may mean for the future of their roles within the organization or they may not feel comfortable learning a new process or software.  To help alleviate some of these concerns, it is important to understand their current processes.  Dive into the weeds as much as possible in order to get a feel for their current methods of reporting, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load), data cleansing and data distribution.  Figure out important questions such as - Who does each person report up to and how will the new process affect their current line of communication?

Once we have a greater understanding and insight into each team member's role, it is now important to address how each of their current job functions may be affected.  Ultimately, there is a reason we are rolling out a major BI implementation. It may be to create efficiencies within processes, to be able to combine multiple data sources into a single location, to provide real time data, etc… Any one of these reasons will have a positive impact on both the organization as a whole as well as the individual players on the team.  Roles may have to change but those changes are generally for good - even for the individual contributors that are affected. At this point, it is important to bring team members into the discussions and decision-making processes for the project. Involve those who will be affected by the change into the conversations quickly. You want them to feel like they have a say in the process. Get them invested in the project.  This will ensure project support and will deter a lot of the push back you get when you simply push a process or technology on to an individual or team. This isn't to say that each member should be in every meeting.  You certainly don't want a business analyst to override the vision of the CMO but it is important to approach the business analyst, in the context of the overall vision, and let him or her contribute thoughts on how that vision can be executed at his or her level.

In our next segment, we will discuss more in depth the process of understanding organizational goals and the need to set priorities based on the Pareto Principal of identifying the fewest Key Performance Indicators that will have the greatest impact within the business.