Project Management Tips

Good Business Intelligence will provide answers to your questions. Great Business Intelligence will answer the questions you wish you had asked. So how do you ensure that your Business Intelligence is great Business Intelligence? The first step is to develop a definitive picture of what you want the BI to deliver. Never lose track of core idea: BI should provide answers to your questions.

Initially, I would advise that you produce a list of dreams and desirables. Ignore whether data is actually available in this first step. A good Business Intelligence professional will often be able to derive information from existing data where it would seem impossible – let them decide what is achievable and what is not. It’s extremely common for a BI implementation to highlight the benefit for new streams of data to be collected and stored.

Joe’s Garage has expanded beyond all expectations through diligence and the use of Business Intelligence. As a result of this success, Joe has expanded the types of data he records and now, as well as customer and completed job records, the company also retains information on employee time keeping, job timings and costings, and a host of other areas of business. As more information is collected Joe becomes increasingly excited about new opportunities. Start here…

With wish-list in hand, confer with anyone who may have an insight into the information your company is storing. Now is the time to track down any information that anyone may be tracking on their personal spreadsheet etc, it can all be reported on and analysed, and can all be of benefit. If your company has Database Administrators, they are likely to be more aware of what data is available than anyone else. Most IT, administrative and management roles involve elements of data collection, recording and monitoring, so prepare to be surprised by the scope of your existing data.

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