BI Strategy and Roadmap Template

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BI Strategy and Roadmap Template

Introduction: How to Use This Template The BI Strategy and Roadmap Template is used to:

• Communicate scope, vision, and context of the BI strategy to stakeholders.

• Facilitate shared understanding and agreement among stakeholders on the scope and the outcome of the BI strategy project.

• Structure and direct further BI efforts. The template contains the following sections:

• Background information

• Pilot Plan (If you are new to BI or you need to onboard new business units to your BI program)

• Enterprise Deployment (If you have completed the pilot project and/or want to define a formal strategy for your existing BI)

• Manage and Sustain BI Strategy

To use this template, simply replace the text in dark grey with information customized to your organization. When complete, delete all introductory or example text and convert all remaining text to black prior to distribution.

Common terms and examples: • Business Intelligence (BI): Presentation of a data warehouse in the form of a BI portal, reports,

dashboards, scorecards, alerts, ad hoc queries, and/or self-service BI. BI and data warehousing are used interchangeably in many situations.

• Data Warehouse (DW): An analytical data repository that combines, integrates, and organizes data from multiple data sources for analytical purposes. The data is usually reorganized into an easy to digest format.

• Data Warehousing: The practice of using a data warehouse to fulfill information needs.

• Data Warehouse Foundation: A foundation laid for subsequent data warehouse development. The foundation is made of foundational information needs, foundational data architecture, and foundational technology stacks. The foundation serves as a knowledgebase that provides the necessary knowledge for later development.

• Iteration: Iterations with a fixed timeframe that are used to build tangible deliverables to deliver business value. An iteration can also be a pilot project, clean-up measure, and/or maintenance project.

• Proof of Concept (Pilot): Demonstrates how the proposed product or solution will support business goals and requirements. It also helps the requesters to visualize the end solution and they may refine their requirements or have new ideas on how to make it better.

• Prototyping: The process of creating prototypes. Prototypes are usually developed collaboratively between IT and the business. Prototyping allows effective requirements gathering, visualization of the end product, early and frequent testing, and end-user training.


Strategy History

Author [Author name]

Document History

Date Change Changed by


Background

Executive Summary Outline the purpose of creating this BI Strategy. Communicate why, what, and how. [Organization] established its BI program as part of the data management group. The program is mandated to exercise authority, control, and enable shared decision making over the use of data and delivery of information and insights. To drive this mandate forward, [Organization] needs a guiding strategy to describe what to aim for and how to implement a successful BI program. Central to this strategy is the evaluation of the current state and the definition of the target state. The existing BI and information landscape will be documented and assessed, with a combination of statistics and user surveys. Once the target state is defined, the remainder of the strategy focuses on comparing the target state to the current state to identify the inefficiencies and gaps, and subsequently suggests the actions to gradually close these gaps. A phased approach will be used to achieve the target BI state; a roadmap will be developed to indicate what actions will be executed at which time periods.


Context A summary of the current BI program. Currently our business operation spans TV, print, distribution, and subscription. The business is siloed, and business units are running their own point solutions. Specifically, there are applications reporting from source systems. Marketing and Operations are using Microsoft BI stack. Finance has their own instance of SAP Business Objects. In addition, they have TM1 for forecasting. There are two ETL suites used to populate datamarts: DataStage (phasing out) and SSIS. We are very focused in reporting and operational BI. In the future, the emphasis should be on true business intelligence in which users will have some freedom to ask open questions. There are about 100-200 users currently. Many are frontline users. Users are generally happy with the current BI program. The users are not very demanding and/or may not know what BI can offer. In the existing environment, siloed datamarts are used to organize operational data. The datamarts are isolated from each other and they do not share conformed dimensions except for the sales region and customer groups. There is no data warehouse in place. Some business units are exploring the option of establishing an enterprise data warehouse (EDW).


BI Benefits Below is a list of BI benefits for your organization. Use the following sample benefits as a starting point to develop benefits that are specific to your business environment.

• One-stop shop for corporate information that empowers a variety of BI users such as casual business users, LOB analytics, executives and mid-management, power users, and data scientists.

• Data is present in digestible format via integration with internal, external, and cloud data sources to enhance data value.

• On-demand information gathering for business to perform its own analyses. Shorten the time it takes to extract, organize, and analyze data.

• Serves as a foundation for new possibilities – big data, predictive analytics, social media analytics, and applications driven by deep analytics.

• Respond to business needs faster to enable faster decisions, creating a more agile business operation.

• Users get their information at the right time, driving user adoption.

• Data warehouse serves as a centralized data repository, reducing the proliferation of shadow IT.

• Accurate decisions are made with clean and updated data, driving decision accuracy and relevance.

• Comprehensive customer profiling, improving relevant customer engagement and generating opportunities for cross- and upselling.

• Historical data can be mined to find patterns and trends to enhance future planning and forecasting, identifying new business opportunities.


Sponsor(s)

Pilot Project

List the sponsors for the pilot project, their names, their roles, and their departments.

Overall Project

List the sponsors for the overall project, their names, their roles, and their departments.

BI Strategy Project RACI

Pilot Project

List the stakeholders for the pilot project. Assign roles to the stakeholders to map out responsibilities.

Overall Project

List the stakeholders for the overall project. Assign roles to the stakeholders to map out responsibilities.

Below is a sample RACI chart containing recommended positions and roles within the project.

Scope

Pilot Project

Define the scope of the pilot project:

• What does the pilot cover?

• What will be covered by the overall project and not by the pilot?

Overall Project

Define the scope of the overall project:

• What does the overall project cover?

• How does overall project relate to data governance, data management, etc.?


Corporate Vision, Mission, and Goals Gather corporate vision, mission, and goals in this section. Corporate goals usually have BI implications. Record the implications in the next section.

BI Vision, Mission, and Goals Define and document BI vision, mission, and goals in this section. Vision: Information is: Gathered Cleaned Organized Presented Delivered Used …and Actioned Mission: Transform data into intelligence and insights to gain competitiveness, customer confidence, employee empowerment, to the extent possible, through design and implementation of a secure, user-friendly and automated business intelligence environment that supports decision makers at all levels by various user groups. Info-Tech BI goal suggestions:

BI Goals

Enterprise information must be easily accessible. End users must be able to access/analyze information in a timeframe that doesn't compromise timely decision making.

Enterprise information must be easy to understand. Information must be intuitive and obvious to end users.

Business intelligence tools must be easy to use. BI tools must be intuitive and obvious to end users.

Enterprise information must come from a single source of truth. Enterprise information must be current, complete, valid, and accurate.

Enterprise information must be secure. Information should not be made available to internal or external users unless access rights have been granted.

Enterprise information must serve as the foundation for improved decision making. Information must support decision making that delivers business impact and value.


Assumptions

Pilot Project

List and validate assumptions for the pilot project:

• Business assumptions

• IT assumptions

• Cost assumptions

Overall Project

List and validate assumptions for the pilot project:

• Business assumptions

• IT assumptions

• Dependency assumptions

Benefit Cost Analysis

Pilot Project

List benefits (both tangible and intangible) and costs.

Overall Project

List benefits (both tangible and intangible) and costs. Framework to consider:


Pilot Plan At this point, an approval has been obtained for a BI strategy pilot project. The pilot project uses a low-risk “duct tape” approach to create a BI prototype to support decisions. Pilot sponsor(s) from a business unit has/have been selected and engaged.

Stakeholder Selection This section documents the output of the BI Pilot Project Planning Tool in regards to stakeholder selection. Stakeholders are ranked and classified into Top Candidates, Adequate Candidates, and Weak Candidates.

Decisions Required With the help of the suggested key decisions in the BI Pilot Project Planning Tool, brainstorm the decision needs of the pilot sponsor and document them here.

Prioritize Decisions Score the decisions by value and feasibility at a high level. Rank the decisions by value and feasibility, then select the top decisions with the highest value and feasibility.

Pilot Project Target State Document what is currently provided by BI in terms of data, reports, dashboards, and self-service datasets. Use the BI Pilot Project Planning Tool to help the senior decision maker to formulate the pilot project target state.

Specify “Duct Tape” Requirements Outline what is required in the aspects of people requirements, process requirements, data requirements, and technology requirements. Convert those requirements into “duct tape” requirements using existing/low-cost technologies to satisfy the pilot sponsor’s decision needs.

Pilot Iterations Show prototype mock-ups to the pilot sponsor. Refine and build the prototypes.

Key Success Factors for the Pilot List the key success factors that define if the pilot successfully meets its purpose.

Pilot Results and Lessons Learned Use the BI Pilot Scorecard to measure the pilot quantitatively and qualitatively. Transfer the results to this section. Document lessons learned with the following lesson learned template:

Stop Doing Start Doing Continue Doing

Project Planning and Scheduling

Relying totally on status reports

N/A Planning quick wins

People, Roles, and Responsibility

N/A Designating back-ups for the

roles Having ample business involvement in project


Change Control Allowing for last-minute

change requests N/A

Clarify the change management process

Requirements Gathering

N/A Following the formal change

requirements gathering process

Creating mock-ups

Solution Design Adding superfluous features and focus on specific needs

N/A Designing highly visual

solutions

Vendor Management N/A Requesting more advanced

product demonstrations Have vendors involved early

Project Communication N/A Speak more often with end

users Collecting KPIs


Enterprise Deployment of the BI Strategy

Phase 1: Establish the Current BI Landscape

Usage Insights

Perception Insights

BI Inventory Insights


Requirements Insights

Develop or refine your requirements gathering framework. Info-Tech suggests the below framework for gathering comprehensive requirements.


Other Phase 1 Findings


Phase 2: Current State Assessment and Target State Envisioning

SWOT Analysis for the Current State:


Current Assessment Results:


Future State Principles

BI principles provide high-level directions to reach the BI goals. Adapting or adopting BI principles from

the web. BI Future State Principles

1. Link data silos: BI principles describe information linkages

2. Alignment with business needs: BI principles ensure alignment

3. Accurate and precise data: BI principles facilitate and integrate data quality

4. Integrity, accessibility, and availability: BI principles enable integrity, accessibility, and availability

5. Information for everyone: Different BI use cases are supported. Users of all level have equal

rights to consumable information.

6. Tool is only a part of the solution: Do not only focus on BI tools. Take a holistic approach that focus beyond tools.

7. BI on BI: Leverage a BI practice to measure the progress of a BI practice.

8. Embed related data management practices: Embed and integrate related practices such as

data quality, data governance, metadata, data warehousing with BI.

9. The business is our customers and partner: Help the business to succeed with BI. Let them drive the BI program. The BI team simply makes their dreams come true.

10. After all, a data driven culture is needed: BI is beyond pulling data and transforming it into

information. It is empowering a data-driven culture.


BI Patterns and Maps:

BI Patterns Identified:

Year 1: Improving Data Quality Self-Service BI Year 2: Data Visualization Mobile BI BI Ambassador Network


Future State Assessment Results:


Critical Success Factors for the Future State:

Provider Critical Success Factors

• BI governance structure and organization is created

• Training is provided for the BI users and the BI team

• BI standards are in place

• BI artifacts are rely on quality data

• Data is organized and presented in a usable fashion

• A hybrid BI delivery model is established

• BI on BI; a measuring plan has to be in place

Consumer Critical Success Factors

• Measureable business results have been improved

• Business targets met/exceeded

• Growth plans accelerated

• World class training to empower BI users

• Continuous promotion of a data-driven culture

• IT–business partnership is established

• Collaborative requirements gathering processes

• Different BI use cases are supported


Risks and Mitigation

Classify project risks using a risk matrix and then deduce risk profile and mitigations.

Low Impact Medium Impact High Impact

High Probability

• Users revert back to Microsoft Excel to analyze data

• BI solution does not satisfy the business need

• BI tools become out of sync with new strategic direction

• Poor documentation creates confusion and reduces user adoption

• Fail to address data issues: quality, integration, definition

• Inadequate communication with stakeholders throughout the project

• Users find the BI tool interface to be confusing

Medium Probability

• Fail to define and monitor KPIs

• Poor training results in low user adoption

• Organization culture is resistant to the change

• Lack of support from the sponsors

• No governance over BI

• Poor training results in misinformed users

Low Probability

• Business units

independently invest in BI as silos

Risk Profile Very Likely + High Impact Risks

Action: Mitigate Timeline: Immediate

Risk Problem Statement

Likely? Impact? Recommendations

•

•

•


Other Phase 2 Findings


Phase 3: Strategy and Roadmap

Define BI Initiatives Use this section to define BI solutions that meet the decision needs outlined earlier.


Roadmap Organize the BI solutions into an implementation roadmap and executive the solutions according to the schedule. Below is a sample roadmap for a BI deployment for a new business unit.

Manage and Sustain BI Strategy

BI Measurement

Measure Name Initial

Measurement Target

Threshold for Re-Assessment

Timely BI

Throughput 10.0 20.0 15.0

Time to Information 15.0 30.0 25.0

Effective BI

Satisfaction Level 20%

Adoption Rate

Affordable BI

Cost per BI Staff

End-User Self-Serve %

Additional Measures

Cost per Deliverable

Operational Cost Savings

Opportunities for Reassessment These are suggested reassessment scenarios. Please modify or add new scenarios according to your needs.

Opportunity for Reassessment Rationale

Changes in the technology landscape New BI capabilities available from the BI tools mean new ways to improve our competitive advantage.

Business goals change New business goals mean the required set of BI needs may change.

BI Improvement Roadmap

Initiatives Start Period End Period Activity Owner Manager Status January February March April May June July August September October November December

February November Barry Brown Glen Madden In Progress . . . . . . . . . .

Develop job descriptions for BI Team members February April Isabelle Rouge Barry Brown Complete . . .

Draft org structures involving a BI CoE April September John Smith Barry Brown In Progress . . . . . .

Present BI CoE org structures to sr managementOctober November Sarah McIntyre Barry Brown Upcoming

. .

Assign roles for BI CoE team

Example: Establish a BI CoE


Organizational restructure

• Centralization or decentralization of IT services or lines of business will impact how IT delivers and manages BI.

• Consider rationalizing or created shared services for BI tools.

Merger or acquisition Adopting a new business means potential for new business goals and, therefore, new BI solutions.

Transformational initiative e.g. Outsourcing

Outsourcing would give the opportunity to ensure all BI solutions are appropriately aligned with line of business needs.

BI Goals and Measures Below are some sample goals. Please modify or add some your own goals.

BI Goals Measures

Enterprise information must be easily accessible. End users must be able to access/analyze information in a timeframe that doesn't compromise timely decision making.

Time to information

Enterprise information must be easy to understand. Information must be intuitive and obvious to end users.

End-user satisfaction End-user adoption

Business intelligence tools must be easy to use. BI tools must be intuitive and obvious to end users.

End-user satisfaction End-user adoption

Enterprise information must come from a single source of truth. Enterprise information must be current, complete, valid, and accurate.

% Stale data % Incomplete data % Invalid data % Duplicate data % Conflicting data

Enterprise information must be secure. Information should not be made available to internal or external users unless access rights have been granted.

Number of breaches

Enterprise information must serve as the foundation for improved decision making. Information must support decision making that delivers business impact and value.

Number of decisions made with enterprise information

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BI Strategy and Roadmap Template

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