Tactical Business Intelligence - its about fit and choice

CIO's often face ongoing criticism about technology services, the "IT doesn't give me what I want" versus the " But its designed to do it this way - best practice" syndrome. So who's fault is this, and what can be done to remedy the disparity in view points, as obviously this is a road to knowhere?

There is no one size fits all approach to business intelligence. Perhaps I have a more simplistic, practical view (don't underestimate the complexity behind delivering "simple") of the approach to BI. I've spent a lot of time with the executive team in defining the requirements, but at this level, the focus appears to be limited to historical results. A well presented Balance Sheet offers no value in terms of proactive management, it is what it is.

So when you start exploring the alternatives and asking "What would be the key things that if you knew them, would make a fundamental difference to you ability to respond proactively?", you see the blank stares. Its not easy. What is that prescient feeling that senior executives develop over time to say " there’s something wrong here" to be proved correct on further investigation? How do you translate that into tactical business intelligence?

At one stage of my career I could walk through an industrial plant and sense quite clearly if there was a problem. I've developed the same sense over the years with IT infrastructure and delivery, and reading financial statements. If something doesn't gel, I follow my gut instinct. I’m not often wrong.

You have to develop an early warning system at tactical level, sensors as to the quality of business you are doing now, in real terms. You can’t rely on history to trigger proactive management. What these will be are dependent on the type of business you manage, but here’s a clue – put yourself back in the position where you were at operational level. Try and remember the challenges you had, the information you would have killed for to make you job easier, that little bit of advance notice that would give you the edge. If you can do this, you’re on the right track.

An example of this in a service environment would be a “potential late delivery” sent out as an email of flashed to a website/ dashboard/ display. Perhaps this is not so simple, as it does imply you have the right data in place to do this i.e. lead times, routings, capacity planning etc. This is in all likelihood the source of the issue – no basics in place.

As I said before, simple tactical reporting is not simple, it requires a level of operational capability that to a large degree has been diluted through apathy and neglect. Companies that have a solid core of operational professionals are well aware of this secret.

In conclusion, Tactical BI=solid operational core, this is where you get the value. Executive dashboards are exactly that, dashed.