What is BI and how can it improve performance?

Defining each user type and their needs

This is part of defining the business goals, but is in here as a separate task to underline how important it is to involve your end users at every step. You need buy-in from all types of users if the project is to be a success – if you don’t have it, people will not use the BI tool and you will not gain the advantages you were expecting.

Different user types will have different requirements from a BI system. Ask potential users to step you through a "day in the life" of their job, including their pain points, how they are being measured and generally what they care about. This helps separate the real requirements from the "nice to have" ones. When asking what data they would like, ask what they plan to do with the data – if they answer that "it would be nice to have", mark it as a low priority.

It is important to look at the skills of the potential users – a successful BI implementation will require buy-in from users, so the easier it is for them to use, the better. Different skill sets can be catered for in some BI tools by presenting the data to the users in a different manner (e.g. an interactive tool Vs a pdf report).

Perform a "user inventory" exercise that classifies users based on their information requirements. Remember that it is not just the managers that need this information – giving all employees access to Business Intelligence that informs them accurately and regularly of how they are doing in relation to company and personal goals actually reduces the cost of managing those employees. They quickly become self-managing in many aspects of their jobs.

Business Week Research Services in their article entitled "The Payoff of Pervasive Performance Management" have this to say about presenting the right data to each employee:

Although performance management encourages all employees to have the same viewpoint toward corporate goals and standard corporate information, a successful PM program realizes that not all employees need to view data in the same way—or to view the same data. Instead, employees each need the right data presented in the right way to help them take the right actions.

The crucial aspect is to think through how different employees use information and to provide it in a way that dovetails seamlessly with how they do their work, especially at less senior levels. As McFadden of Procter & Gamble puts it, "If the system is not intuitive immediately with limited self-help, you have missed the mark."