Back in March I posted “Five Reasons Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work In Some Organizations“. In that post, I listed some of the major concerns that I hear from potential clients when the subject of ad hoc reporting is broached. We’ve already addressed “Our people aren’t smart enough to create their own reports”, “We need to massage the data first“, “I don’t want people poking around in data they shouldn’t have access to”, and “I already pay people in IT to create reports“.
As a conclusion to this series, let’s look at out final topic: If I give them ad hoc access to data, they’ll keep asking for more.
A Doubled-Edged Sword
You may have heard it as child, I know I did. “I give you an inch, and you take a foot.” End users are a lot like that, too.
You give them a report, they want another version sorted differently.
Give them a dashboard, and they’ll want to drill into more detailed information to analyze troubled spots.
Give them a subset of sales information, and they’ll want to compare that marketing information.
But, is this really a bad thing?
Business Intelligence is an Iterative Process
One of the first things that we do when meeting with a new BI team at a client is a brief demo of the end-user tools we will be using. Not only does this give them a preview of what’s to come, but it starts to open up their mind to new ways to accomplish things.
If all you’ve ever done is bring data into Excel for analysis, you may relay that when asked for your requirements. If your mind is opened by seeing new and better ways to do things, however, you will begin to apply those new techniques to alter how you work. This continuous learning process and adaptation is a core part of a successful BI project.
The same goes for data. You may not realize how another set of data can help you expand your analysis, until you can get your hands on it. One set of data drives the inclusion of another, and so on…
Further in the process, we start to hear things like “you know what we could do” and “if we had ‘xyz’, we could tied it into ‘abc’ and finally be able to…”. In fact, if we DON’T start to hear these things, we’ve know we’ve got problems as the users aren’t actively involved in the process.
Now I’m not suggesting you throw away your project plans and start adding in every piece of data a user asks for. Just like any project, the cost, benefit to the organization, timeline, etc… need to be considered. And like any other project, budget is a huge factor that can’t be ignored. Rather, BI projects will always be an iterative process, and to implement a successful solution you need to embrace those iterations and make them a part of your methodology.
Conclusion
So if you implement ad hoc reporting for your organization (and if the user community is actively involved) they will ask for more.
More data, Historical data. New data sources.
You may even have to build a new data mart. Or two.
But when you keep them actively involved, and give them the tools and information they need to better do their jobs, the organization as a whole will continue to grow and succeed.
Question: Do you find users in your organization asking for more and more out of their reporting environment? If so, how do you handle it?
Related Posts:
- Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work (part 3): I don’t want people poking around in data they shouldn’t have access to
- Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work (part 4): I Pay People in IT to Create Reports
- Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work (part 1): Our People Aren’t Smart Enough
- Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work (part 2): We Need to Massage the Data First
- Five Reasons Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work in Some Organizations
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Strategy & Execution, User Adoption