LocationsLast week’s Gartner BI Summit in Las Vegas was a lot like the famous Vegas buffets—too much for one sitting. The topics ranged from establishing Enterprise BI and BI Delivery Frameworks to Master Data Management, Enterprise Architecture, Sourcing and Resourcing, and Measuring Business Value. Others were broader, addressing questions like how to engage the business in establishing meaningful metrics.
One of my favorite speakers was Keith Ferazzai, author of Who’s Got Your Back? and ex-CMO for Deloitte. He challenged us all to create an environment in our organizations and our projects that fosters truth telling. This starts with finding out what’s important to end users and taking an interest in their concerns, which helps to drive adoption and create reporting that’s more meaningful. Holding each other accountable and establishing a culture of intimacy fosters innovation.
Meaningful reporting comes down to measuring the right metrics, which was another common theme throughout the Summit. Often, companies invest in lots of tools and technology without stopping to really evaluate what they’re trying to measure. Business intelligence offers a real opportunity to make a difference by making sure you involve cross-functional areas of your business in the discussion of what should be measured. To take advantage of the full value of BI, recruit a senior executive to lead a metrics framework and create a BI strategy that connects planning, reporting, and analysis to inform business goals.
However, it often felt like those crucial business voices were scarce at the Summit itself. Here’s my recommendation to Gartner for next year’s BI Summit: offer a 50% discount for each business stakeholder from a specific company with a fully paid IT registration. This would help break the silos in which many companies now function by bringing attention and an open discussion to BI and IT projects. It would also create more holistic conversations so that all attendees could return home poised to build the collaborative frameworks that are vital to any successful BI project.