One surprising challenge that can derail your Business Intelligence implementation

One challenge facing Business intelligence implementations today is related to how data is shared within the organization. We’ve been working to make work more open and social over the last few years, but there’s one place we’ve neglected to address along the way. How do we share ad hoc business intelligence data within the organization?

In years past, our Business Intelligence content was developed as individual reports. This disconnected content approach enabled data producers to act as data gatekeepers. The owner of the report would decide who to share the data with and would email it to the person as they saw fit.

In subsequent years, we migrated to a portal based distribution strategy. Tools like SQL Server Reporting Services enabled us to post formal reports centrally, where they could be accessed. However, ad hoc reporting generally remained outside of the portal, to remain shared via email.

With the advent of new tools like Power BI, ad hoc reporting is easier than ever. Everything on the screen is clickable and it enables interactive data exploration. The intended interaction with these tools is similar to how we use Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest in our personal lives today. We post information and others can choose how and when to consume it.

Imagine the confusion that arises when a BI implementation team gets puzzling questions from groups. How do I email this data model to others? How do I print a dashboard and so forth? Simply updating the tool set to the latest generation, while ignoring certain underlying organizational behaviors can impact the long term success of implementing the latest generation BI tools.

An organizational assessment should be done as part of a Business Intelligence tool implementation to consider how people share data currently and as to whether those sharing habits are compatible with the new BI tools. If the organization is used to posting and forwarding links, then they should have no issues adopting the new tools. If the organization is still email centric in their information sharing, a concerted effort will be required to change habits away from sharing content via email and to posting and link sharing. These findings can be used to adjust scope around work needed for training and ongoing support.

What has been your experience? Please share below in the comments.