Home > Ask the Data management / BI Experts > Business intelligence and analytics Questions & Answers > Establishing business intelligence (BI) steering committees
Ask The Data Management Expert: Questions & Answers
EMAIL THIS

Establishing business intelligence (BI) steering committees

William McKnight EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: William McKnight

Pose a Question
Other Data Management Categories
Meet all Data Management Experts
Become an Expert for this site


Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us   


>
QUESTION POSED ON: 23 April 2004
Our company has recently created an Enterprise Data Warehouse environment - one small project has gone live and a large project is in progress and is scheduled to go live at the end of the year.

We have recommended the formation of a "Business intelligence (BI) Steering Committee" to develop and direct enterprise BI strategy and priorities, and a "BI Working Committee" to direct the implementation of the BI Strategy.

Can you provide us with any hints or tips based on your experience?

Some specific questions are:

  • What types of people should make up each of these business intelligence committees? Assuming you agree, how do we justify having senior business reps on the BI Steering Committee?
  • Can you point us to any best practices around the formation of such committees?


    • Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us   



    RELATED CONTENT
    Business intelligence and analytics
    Do we need business intelligence (BI) tools to be successful?
    How to explain and define business intelligence to mid-management
    Examining different data access methods: OLAP and data mining
    What are the best analytical tools for business intelligence for finance?
    Fastest way to learn business intelligence (BI)
    Should a data steward have direct SQL access for reporting purposes?
    Business intelligence market growth for 2009 and beyond
    Comparing Cognos vs. Business Objects for BI reporting
    Business intelligence in management careers
    Data warehouse and business intelligence team reporting structure

    Business intelligence technology platform
    BI project management tips for implementation success
    Oracle, SAP and IBM top Forrester's corporate performance management rankings
    Microsoft details self-service business intelligence, data warehouse releases
    Birst takes SaaS BI out of the cloud, battles data security fears
    Hurdles for SaaS BI vendors include data integration, low recognition
    IBM launches private analytics cloud
    Atlanta YMCA turns to SaaS BI software over 'complicated' Cognos
    Choosing BI software: Use your ERP vendor or go with third-party BI?
    Data integration for Software as a Service business intelligence software evolves
    SAP inks another partnership to enhance NetWeaver BW

    Planning
    Business intelligence project management: Five must-have pieces of advice
    Business intelligence ROI: Five keys to justifying BI investments
    Common business intelligence (BI) mistakes
    Business intelligence software: Invest now or wait?
    Business intelligence software deployments: Seven fatal flaws to avoid
    The savvy manager's guide to business intelligence: Making the business case for BI
    Expensive data warehouses not always necessary for BI
    BI better bought than built, study says
    Business intelligence roadmap: Project planning
    Data warehousing strategy: Is training necessary?

    RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS
    Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary
    corporate performance management  (SearchDataManagement.com)

    RELATED RESOURCES
    2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems
    Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts
    Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary


    Congratulations on your success thus far. I absolutely believe you are correct that both programs are necessary - the business intelligence steering committee at the executive level to guide the program and make decisions on funding and prioritization of work and the other, at more of a working level to be the business influence on specific development. I call them Data Governance and Data Stewardship.

    There are a few things worth standing ground on because failure to do them will result in overall failure. There's no work-around. Business involvement and data governance and stewardship are the most tangible ways to insure business involvement. Lack of business involvement is the definition of those "IT data warehouses" that had high-failure rates some years ago. We've learned from those.

    Data Governance preferably meets monthly, especially early in the program. These are preferably executive levels from the different business areas affected by the EDW, notably Marketing, Sales, Product Management and Finance, plus others depending on your industry. The executive sponsor is one of the participants and is actually the most active and should be given "tiebreaker" authority over the committee. Interest in major additions of usage, subject areas, and data sources should be brokered by this committee.

    I don't consider data stewardship as much a committee as I do a program. Maybe you could consider it a loose committee, but since the purpose is to drill deep within a subject area, not all stewardship activities are interesting to all data stewards. I have an article on data stewardship called "Data Stewardship: The Key to Business Involvement in Data Warehousing". It's among my articles at http://www.mcknight- associates.com/articles. I recommend one steward per-business subject area - a subject area SME - and that their responsibilities include arbitrating the transformation rules, verifying the data after load, contribution of business metadata, approval of new users, supporting the user community and data quality.




    Search and Browse the Expert Answer Center
    Search and browse more than 25,000 question and answer pairs from more than 250 TechTarget industry experts.
    Browse our Expert Advice

    About Us  |  Contact Us  |  For Advertisers  |  For Business Partners  |  Site Index  |  RSS
    SEARCH 
    TechTarget provides technology professionals with the information they need to perform their jobs - from developing strategy, to making cost-effective purchase decisions and managing their organizations' technology projects - with its network of technology-specific websites, events and online magazines.

    TechTarget Corporate Web Site  |  Media Kits  |  Site Map




    All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2005 - 2009, TechTarget | Read our Privacy Policy     		  TechTarget - The IT Media ROI Experts