6 Best Practices to follow in a Business Intelligence Modernization initiative
Here are 6 Best Practices that should be followed while taking up a BI modernization initiative:
- Have the business case ready: In most cases, a modernization initiative is mandated and driven by IT organization rather than business. It is always advisable to ensure that such an initiative is made relevant to the business as well. Such initiatives should always be linked to a set of problems that business users are facing with the current systems while trying to get meaningful insights.
- Assess, Rationalize and Prioritize: A BI modernization initiative should always be preceded by an assessment phase. Objective of such a phase should be to go through the inventory of reports/ dashboards/ cubes and rationalize them. This activity will include combination, decommissioning (existing reports/ cubes) and ideation (of new reports/ cubes). The final set of reports/ cubes should also be ranked on the basis of priority (with inputs from business users), complexity and similarity.
- Say no to Big Bang: BI modernization initiatives should never be deployed in a big bang mode. Instead, such initiatives should be deployed in phases/ waves/ laps. In fact, even before the migration activity is undertaken, a pilot should be undertaken which comprises of a set of use cases which can potentially cover the complete range/ variety of reports/ cubes. A successful pilot phase will instill confidence in both business and IT community and any potential issues regarding architecture, visualization etc. can be clarified and closed.
- Parallel Run: Business users will have confidence in the new system if the information delivered with the new system ties back to the older one. Thus, it is always advisable to have an extended parallel run where both the BI systems (old vs. new) are active.
- Don't forget the human touch: One of the biggest challenge encountered in a BI modernization initiative is business user adoption. Typically, business users are so used to the functionalities available in an older BI tool/ technology that they insist on replicating the same functionality in the new BI system which can potentially lead to product customizations (and hence higher TCO and greater risk). Thus, change management and user adoption should be given due importance right from the project initiation.
- Governance = f {business, IT): Lastly, governance structure for such initiatives should ensure continual business representation. This step will ensure business buy-in and help mitigate issues mentioned in the above points.
I would be interested to hear your feedback on these best practices as well as any additional challenges that you/ your team has faced during such BI modernization initiatives.
