BI Governance

The challenge with governance is significant in many organizations when it comes to rolling out a BI platform especially when it comes to IT resources. BI technology resources almost always fall outside of the core application development structure in many organizations. The BI technology resources build extracts that pull data out of systems owned by another group. That group is often focused on implementing enhancements and releases to their applications that can sometimes take precedent over supporting an extract build to a warehouse. It can, and often does, become a juggling act.

A possible solution in support of improved coordination in this area entails a full process integration of your BI technology assets into your application development infrastructure with a specific focus on assuming responsibility for delivering on reporting needs as part of your application development effort. Rather than waiting until the business case and requirements are finalized before you engage the BI team for support on report development, make them an integral part of the process upfront. Handing the BI technology team 20 and 30 page documents to review and then having them engage the business separately might not be the most practical use of time and resources. Some key items for consideration from an overall BI governance perspective include the following:

-- Consider appointing an Officer level individual responsible for BI initiatives with matrix reporting from respective IT and business sponsors engaged in BI activity.

-- Establish a Program Management Office to reinforce organizational wide commitment and partnering for BI activity.

-- Appoint a dedicated report analyst in each functional area with matrices into the PMO office who will serve to help address production support, issue escalation, status reporting and project plan deliverables. The degree of dedication initially should be significant but can be scaled down as the BI environment matures.

-- Establish BI alignment meetings with senior leadership to ensure continued buy-in and support (must be done in parallel with IT leadership as well).

-- Institutionalize the value of collecting and analyzing information assets via a formal horizontal and vertical communication plan. Stakeholders can't appreciate what they don't know and that might present challenges when you need to get additional funding down the road.

Having the strategy and vision will mean very little if you don't have the governance structure in place to pull it off. A firm commitment in this area ensures success across the board. Be careful when assigning resources to your BI effort. Stand tall in the face of the "it's just reporting" comments that may come your way and be ready to demonstrate how BI can be a key asset to expense management and business profitability in your organization.

If you have not noticed by now, I left out any reference to a particular technology or tool that can make all your BI challenges go away. It doesn't exist. We often see BI efforts driven by IT groups and why not? Finding a way to put technology into the hands of the users freeing up dedicated IT resources to design and distribute hundreds if not thousands of reports is a sure way to get some year end kudos and significant cost avoidance saves for the department and business, as well. However, sitting in this position from an IT perspective is sort of like dealing with my 2 year old when I give him a cookie. "More, more, more...please" is what you will be faced with because users will demand more and unlike my 2 year old, they will know that there is more and will quickly gain a level of sophistication and expectation that may overwhelm the best technology organization. As you seek a solution from a technology perspective, make sure that you bring the users along to ensure that they understand the technology requirements from an architecture perspective as well. After, all there is nothing like defining the strategy, procuring the resources, building the box, opening the box and finding out your cookies are crumbling. Ooops, I think I hear my 2 year old crying.