Reasons BI Projects Fail

Most BI Projects that fail are largely due to the organizations failure to realize that business intelligence is not about technology, it is about Performance Management.

Adopting a technology approach focuses a BI project on the delivery of the BI toolset, instead of the more critical elements of people and process change. Likewise, the broader Information Management dimension are often neglected.

Technology must be delivered in an interative and agile manner.

Processes - the project needs to remedy the common disconnect between core management planning and control processes. This includes setting targets, formulating strategy, planning, forecasting, risk management, investment planning, performance feedback, and financial consolidation. Currently, this process is driven by the Annual
Budget and the Finance Department. The value of this is very limited compared to a process approach that links together all the above processes in a way to provide control at three levels; Strategic, Operational, and Activities, and implementing the use of feedback loops.

People - recognizing the way decisions are made today, and the trust issues that surface using advanced visualization tools instead of spreadsheets must not be overlooked. This may mean deploying only a fraction of a BI solution capability at initial rollout, to allow business users to be more comfortable in adopting new tools to support their business process.

Rolling out BI in an organization is a step by step process through the enterprise’s processes, methodologies, metrics and technologies.

Merely implementing a business intelligence tool is not the answer. BI is an holistic change to 95% of the enterprise.

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