Business Intelligence Best Practices That Will WOW Your Clients

Having worked on a  number of successful business intelligence implementations over the years in various capacities, both as an architect, project manager, and then later as an executive sponsor, there has emerged a set of high level best practices that will help keep the project focused, on track, and in most cases result in a successful implementation. These best practices are not focused on the technical implementation details, but rather on the management of the project itself. A few of these you may have logically thought of or heard before, but I bet a few will be new to you. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

1. Know Why The Project Has Meaning To The Executive Team
A lot of business intelligence best practice articles will tell you to make sure you have executive support. However, you need to go beyond this rudimentary advice and dig into why an executive at this particular company would support this project. What does the project mean to their individual top line and bottom line? Now quantify this number in real dollars.  Also, find out how the project will relieve pain, or make each executive’s life easier within the company. Once you know this information gathered from every executive impacted by your project, you will have the proverbial keys to the kingdom…as long as the benefits you uncovered are strong enough. Use this information and reinforce the importance of the project during the course of the project. Review your notes and speak each executives ‘language’ as you talk about the progress you are making.

2. Clearly Define What ‘Success” For Your Project Looks Like…From The People That Will Be Using The Information.
It is not enough to talk in general terms when it comes to a business intelligence project’s goals. In other words, if your project was focused on helping the Sales department…you would not want to have as a project goal something like: “The sales department wants to know who their best performers are.”  Nope…that dog won’t hunt.  What we need are clearly defined objectives that come from the business units perspective, not ITs perspective of what the sales department needs. To do this you need to spend time with the Sales division’s leadership and identify the key metrics they use to drive their key business decisions. You will quickly discover that each Sales division you work with over the course of your career has a slightly different approach to how they run their business. Over time you will develop an intuitive approach that will amplify your effectiveness during these fact finding conversations.

3. Quickly Establish Control
Without a doubt, the surest way to failure with a business intelligence project is to allow control of the project to be placed outside of you and your team. There are several techniques that have worked well for me over the years. Here are a few ways to establish and keep control of your project that I have found work exceptionally well:

Begin Strong
The way you kick off the project will set the tone for the rest of your time with this client. Be sure to hold a kickoff meeting to set the tone and build credibility within the company. After all, you probably met with a few key executives to land the job, but many people don’t know you or your team yet. Use this meeting to not only set a clear direction and plan for the project, but also to build the credibility of your team, establish trust, and begin to build relationships with the people you will be working with daily.

Identify The Hidden Gurus…And Recruit Them
Within each organization there are two types of leaders…those that appear to be the leaders due to their position, and those that actually influence decisions. Sometimes is the same person, but most often behind the person with the position of power, there is another person that wields great power within the organization and through their expertise, respect, and influence have become the de-facto decision maker. It is in your best interest to actively find and cultivate relationships with these ‘hidden leaders’.

Over Communicate
There is nothing that will build trust like regular, consistent communication. I do this in the form of bi-weekly email updates to the core management team, and a once per week 30 minute status meeting. The format of the meeting is simple and does not vary much each week.  We talk about what we did the previous week, what we are doing currently, what we are going to do the week after.  These three areas of discussion will surface issues and roadblocks that you can then begin to remove to keep the project on track.

4. Many Small Releases
Along with regular and consistent communication, the most powerful trust builder you can provide to your client is to show Quick and Regular Wins Along The Way. This means adopting a development methodology that promotes quick release cycles that show continuous improvement over time. Never, and I mean never create a project plan that moves releases into production more than thirty days away. There is something very re-assuring to everyone involved when you show consistent, meaningful progress in regular intervals. The thirty day mark would be the absolute maximum I would recommend.  If you can define and deliver real deliverables (even if they are small) in two week increments then I would do so. The benefits are not only reassurance to your sponsors, but also that you get real feedback much sooner in the process. This is one of the key reasons why many of my projects succeed.

5. Help Your Executive Sponsor Become The Hero
Perhaps no human motivation is as strong as the desire to be liked, admired, and respected. You can leverage this fact by making sure that your project accomplishes these things for your project sponsor. I’ll write more about this topic in the future, but suffice it to say that by ensuring that not only is the project successful, but that you project sponsor is seen as the hero within her company will do wonders for your own reputation and your own ability to land future projects. The key here is to do this with a genuine attitude of service. This is not a fake tactic, but rather should be your regular mode of operation and should be aligned with your own companies values in terms of how clients are treated. Very powerful.

6. Empower The People
At the end of the day business intelligence is about getting critical business information into the hands of the people that need it to make better business decisions. Executives need a certain type of information, managers another, and employees yet another. Your job is to remove barriers to the information needed by each group and create seamless pathways between systems that produce data, and people who need relevant and timely information. This is the great calling of the business intelligence professional and once you have done it a few times you get addicted to the feeling of empowering others.