Framework to Start (or Restart) a BI Program

Presentation Summary

Todd Hill; University of Notre Dame

Framework to Start (or Restart) a BI Program

The purpose of this presentation is to provide a framework for those organizations looking to start or re-start a BI program. It is based upon my personal experience at Notre Dame where I was asked to run a BI program that had run aground. Here is some business context:

In our first attempt to build an enterprise-wide data warehouse, it took us 18 months to deliver and we still had not successfully delivered it
Customers were extremely frustrated with what we were able to deliver
There was low morale with our IT staff because even though they were working hard, we were not able to deliver results
There was internal conflict on who should be running the BI program and role and responsibility confusion among the team
There was indecision on which BI tools we should be using
In my assessment, we had to do two things: simplify our approach and deliver results quickly. The framework presented was developed as a result. It is not meant to be prescriptive in any way as I believe there are hundreds of different ways a BI program could be done successfully. This presentation would present the why and what behind key BI program activities, but leave the how up to individual organizations.