Over the past year, I've been working diligently to get the right sponsorship from my company's management to support a BI program. It's hard work, and we're not there yet. Unfortunately, like Mr. Fudd, I tend to shoot myself in the foot too. Remember "Guerilla BI"? Good idea (for me) to learn the (technical) ropes and see what's going on in the craft - but I think having done that gave management the impression this is a technical problem to solve, not a business issue. I dug my hole, was happy to do it in order to figure out what all this BI and DW stuff was about (and would still recommend you get your hands dirty as well). But I do wish I'd handled the transition of sticking my head up and getting attention for the program a little better than I did. Despite that, I'm not entirely certain there's a good understanding of what analytics need from the organization - and hunting that rabbit may turn into my white whale...
We've had some other changes in the organization recently, and more big ones are on the way. It's looking like we'll be implementing an SAP ERP over the next couple of years, and I might get to peek at the inside of HANA. That should be interesting, and will certainly cause some architectural shifts in the construction of our data warehouse! That's without mentioning consolidating multiple systems into SAP, which the current data warehouse will assist with, but will also remove one of the perceived drivers to have a data warehouse. Who knows, I could get converted over to the "dark side" of Informatica, SAP BDW and BO...
Hi Todd,
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, trying to address organizational issues with technology is one of the top causes for failure in BI projects. In fact that may be the case for almost any IT initiatives. Because you won’t solve the poor communication processes of a company with SharePoint, the poor sales pipeline management with a CRM and the bad management habits with a new HR system. Thinking that a tool alone will solve an org. issue, without better processes and motivated people all working in the same direction, is just wishful thinking.
But that’s really hard work to try to convince our executives of that. And the harder it is to convince them, the more it is needed. Because in general that’s where the executives are the more responsible of the issues and also the less aware of it. Having them admit that a tool alone won’t solve the issue is having them admit that they are a part of the problem through bad management, unclear strategies or lack of action.
Anyway, I wish you good luck for your travel to the dark side. Even if you were proud of the lean side of your work environment, you’ll have to be prepared to fight for it, as ERP and Lean don’t really go together (http://kevinmeyer.com/blog/2006/06/forget_sap_run_.html).
I’m sorry Todd, I re-read this comment and it’s not really optimistic… But despite all that, what I’m sure of is that you will know how to get the better out of this situation. So that’s not all dark after all ;)
My post isn't all that optimistic, but it's realistic, I think. The really sad part is that the mantra in IT these days is "there is no such thing as an IT project, they're all business-led projects"... except it certainly doesn't seem like it here :)
ReplyDelete"Who knows, I could get converted over to the "dark side" of Informatica, SAP BDW and BO..."
ReplyDeleteNever!!
Good to see back on deck posting etc, it's been too long!!
- Josh Ash