The Secrets of Successful

Self-Service BI Programs
Self-service business intelligence is getting a lot of attention from
companies as a way to cut dependence on IT. But self-service doesnt always
mean no fuss, and businesses that want to tap into benets need to examine
what can go wrong as well as what can go right. BY BETH STACKPOLE
1 2 3 4
EDITORS NOTE SELF-SERVICE
SOFTWARE
BROADENS BI
USAGE, REDUCES
RELIANCE ON IT
RECIPE FOR
SELF-SERVICE BI
CALLS FOR MIX
OF FLEXIBILITY,
GOVERNANCE
SELF-SERVICE BI
TOOLS REQUIRE
CUSTOM FIT FOR
DIFFERENT USERS
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2 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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1
EDITORS NOTE
For BI Teams, Self-Service Apps
Warrant Close Attention
Self-service business intelligence sounds so simple: Give business us-
ers easy-to-use BI tools and let them do their own data analysis and build
their own reports. Easy, right? But of course, theres a lot more to it than that.
Some users just need dashboards with data that they can drill into if theyre
so inclined; others want full-edged BI tools that let them write their own
analytical queries and create their own reports. Theres trainingpotentially
a lot of trainingto be done, often followed by ongoing handholding. IT and
BI teams also have to closely monitor the use of self-service applications to
make sure data is being used in a consistent way by different users and that
mammoth queries dont choke BI systems.
Whats really easy is going wrong, according to a survey conducted in
July 2012 by Wayne Eckerson, director of the BI Leadership Research unit at
TechTarget (which is also the parent company of SearchBusinessAnalytics.
com). Only 36% of the 234 respondents rated the success of their self-ser-
vice BI initiatives good or excellent.
Youll nd more from the survey in this three-part guide on self-service
BI, along with advice from experienced IT executives and BI consultants on
how to get a good grade on deployments.
First, we look at the benets of using self-service software. Next, we cata-
log tips on successfully managing self-service projects. And nally, we focus
on issues to consider in evaluating and selecting self-service tools. n
Craig Stedman
Executive Editor, SearchBusinessAnalytics.com
3 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
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Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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2
OVERVIEW
Self-Service Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces Reliance on IT
Data is flowing into organizations in larger and larger amounts and from
more and more sources, creating an abundance of information to analyze
in search of business insights and competitive advantages. In addition, the
still-sluggish economy and hypercompetitive business climate are pushing
resource-constrained companies to seek out fresh revenue opportunities
another reason to make data more readily available for analysis by business
users.
One answer is self-service business intelligence software, which aims to
push BI capabilities and control further out into the enterprise. The idea be-
hind the self-service approach is to foster wider and more effective use of BI
tools by enabling end users to write queries and create reports on their own,
without having to wait for IT or BI teams to do the work for them.
Even if you have perfect harmony between business users and IT, the very
act that you have to explain to someone else what you need to do rather than
going and doing it yourself is time-consuming, awkward and limiting, said
Chris Webb, founder of Crossjoin Consulting, a consultancy in Amersham,
England, that focuses on Microsofts BI tools. Self-service gives users a lot
more freedom to follow their own hunches and explore data in their own
way.
Self-service software offers a way to extend the scope and reach of BI de-
ployments while also creating a more personalized and collaborative deci-
sion-making environment for information workers, added Claudia Imhoff,
president and founder of Intelligent Solutions Inc., a BI and analytics consul-
tancy in Boulder, Colo.
4 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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OVERVIEW
LIVING THE SIMPLE LIFE
Imhoff co-authored a report on self-service BI that was published by The
Data Warehousing Institute in July 2011. In the report, Imhoff and fellow au-
thor Colin White, founder of consulting company BI Research in Ashland,
Ore., wrote that self-service implementations should focus on four main ob-
jectives: easy access to data for reporting and analysis; user-friendly BI tools
and data analysis capabilities; simple and customizable user interfaces; and
data warehousing technologies that can be deployed quickly, such as appli-
ances and cloud-based systems.
In preparing the report, Imhoff and White surveyed 587 business and IT
professionals. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents cited a need for
faster time-to-value from BI systems in their organizations, while nearly half
said their organizations needed to become more analytics-driven. Self-ser-
vice BI tools can help meet both of those needs, Imhoff said.
Despite the various factors driving increased needs for BI capabilities, the
penetration of BI software into organizations remains relatively small and its
usage in many cases is still fairly rudimentary, said Wayne Eckerson, director
of TechTarget Inc.s BI Leadership Research unit.
According to a survey of 234 BI and IT professionals, business users and
consultants that Eckerson conducted in July 2012, on average only 26% of the
employees at responding organizations were working directly with BI tools,
while another 37% were using analytical data generated by the tools. And
among the BI users, 47% were simply viewing static reports or dashboards,
the survey found.
TOO MUCH FOR IT TO DO?
Part of the reason for such low numbers is the traditional, IT-centric ap-
proach to BI, in which business users are reliant on IT staffers or BI team
members to create queries and build reports for them. That puts limits on
how far users can go with the data; it can also be a burden on IT and BI man-
agers trying to keep pace with escalating user requests at a time when many
have diminished resources to call upon.
5 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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OVERVIEW
Users have more and more questions they are trying to answer, and IT
just doesnt have the people and resources to keep creating new slices of that
data, said Francois Ajenstat, director of product management at BI vendor
Tableau Software Inc. in Seattle. Business users are getting frustrated, and
IT is drowning in the backlog.
At HealthHelp, a Houston-based company that provides radiology man-
agement services for insurers and physicians, its original BI system relied on
IT to process all data analysis requests. But BI is such a key part of Health-
Helps business model that it had to nd an approach that would give users
both increased autonomy and agility, said Steve Spar, the companys chief in-
formation ofcer.
We do a lot of analytics work in terms of understanding and reporting on
trendsits really the companys main value proposition back to the cus-
tomer, Spar said. The ask, wait, get an answer, ask, wait, get an answer
process [between the business and IT] was very time-consuming and unsat-
isfying, both for our internal users and our external customers.
Using Tableaus self-service software and a new data warehouse infra-
structure, sales and client service representatives and HealthHelp executives
are now empowered to drill through data, ask follow-up questions and gen-
erate reports themselves. As a result, Spar said, we have much faster turn-
around on getting data out to customers. n
6 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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PLANNING
Recipe for Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility, Governance
While the self-service business intelligence moniker implies that busi-
ness users will be able to effortlessly partake in BI activities, implementing
tools that are truly self-service and that get widely embraced isnt so simple.
Technical, procedural and cultural issues can all trip up deployments if BI
managers dont plan carefully and forge a close partnership with their busi-
ness counterparts.
In fact, the road to self-service BI can be quite bumpy, according to a sur-
vey of 234 BI and IT professionals, business users and consultants conducted
in July 2012 by Wayne Eckerson, director of TechTarget Inc.s BI Leadership
Research unit. Sixty-four percent of the respondents rated the success of
their self-service BI initiatives as average or lower.
The biggest challenge they cited was that self-service BI tools require more
training than expected; that answer was chosen by 73% of the respondents.
In addition, 61% said using self-service software creates report chaos and
42% said the tools confuse users. Fifteen percent even said they were get-
ting more requests for help with self-service tools than they were before.
How can something be self-service if it requires the IT department to train
and support users continually? Thats the conundrum of self-service BI,
Eckerson wrote in a report about the survey.
The key to avoiding such problems, consultants and experienced BI man-
agers say, is eschewing a one-size-ts-all approach and instead deploying a
set of tools and processes that will accommodate power users as well as in-
formation consumer type users who might require substantial training and
handholding.
7 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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PLANNING
ACTION ITEM: SUPPORT USER DIVERSITY
Just installing an easy-to-use BI tool doesnt automatically mean you have
a self-service BI environment, said Claudia Imhoff, president and founder of
BI consultancy Intelligent Solutions Inc. There are different needs within an
organization. You need to know who your information workers are and what
kind of self-service they really want.
For example, tech-savvy users likely will be immediately comfortable with
the idea of using self-service applications to dive into BI data and create their
own queries and reports. For more casual users, Imhoff said, self-service
might simply mean being able to change the parameters on a report to get a
different spin on the data.
Governance of users is also critical to self-service BI success, despite the
fact that IT has to loosen its control over the data analysis process. Work-
ing in tandem with business managers, BI teams need to establish common
data denitions for key performance metrics such as revenue and protabil-
ity, so there is organizational consistency in analyzing them. IT and BI man-
agers should then monitor usage of self-service software on an ongoing basis
to detect and correct any compliance issues and to head off runaway queries
that could choke the BI system.
Darren Taylor, president of Cobalt Talon, an analytics service provider that
is a division of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City, said BI developers can
help avoid such problems by hard-coding predened performance metrics
into self-service environments. You could throw raw data into the self-ser-
vice BI tool and let people be power users, but then youre talking the Wild
West when creating metrics from one person to the next, said Taylor, who
previously was vice president of enterprise analytics and data management at
Blue KC.
COOKING UP A BI BUFFET
In much the same vein, Imhoff counsels BI managers to create a starter li-
brary of report templates and standard analytics routines as part of a self-
service BI system so business users can pick and choose what they need
8 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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PLANNING
based on their requirements. Think of it as a buffet table of BI components,
Imhoff said. The more work IT can do on the front end, the more standard-
ized this becomes, and it makes everything run easier.
Radiology management services provider HealthHelp did lots of work on
both the front and back ends to ensure that its deployment of self-service BI
tools was a success, said Steve Spar, the companys chief information ofcer.
IT and BI developers created standardized metrics for some of HealthHelps
more complex analytics parameters and also rened the data schema and da-
tabase architecture underpinning the BI system so data could be easily lo-
cated by business users.
Spar said that with the right foundational technologies in place, users
are empowered to do self-service BI, freeing IT workers from having to be
hands-on in the data analysis process. IT moves into a consultative role
rather than a task-doing role, he added. They can then help those who help
themselves. n
9 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
OPENER
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DEPLOYMENT
Self-Service BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for Different Users
The self-service approach has long been touted as a way to democratize
business intelligence. But that democratic notion can complicate the process
of evaluating and choosing self-service BI tools since project managers often
have to cater to the separate needs of different groups of users.
As a result, consultants and BI managers say, a cookie-cutter approach
typically isnt feasible on deployments of self-service applications. For ex-
ample, corporate executives, business managers and other casual BI users
might simply want interactive dashboards and reports that they can drill into
if they want to further analyze some of the data presented to them. More ad-
vanced users, on the other hand, are likely to be looking for a high degree of
query, report and dashboard authoring capabilities.
Ultimately, self-service business intelligence should be viewed as a man-
agement discipline for broadening the base of BI users in organizations, not
a specic technology and feature set, said William McKnight, president of
McKnight Consulting Group in Plano, Texas.
Self-service BI is more of a touchstone for how we roll out our business
intelligence, he said. You can do self-service BI with a variety of toolsits
really a matter of [what level] the users are and where the technology is and
bridging the gap with the idea that you expect users to do more.
MOBILE APPS PUT USERS AT EASE
At Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City, a combination of intuitive dash-
boards and self-service BI tools running on iPads was instrumental in getting
top execs and business managers to feel more comfortable about creating
their own reports and analytical queries, said Darren Taylor, formerly vice
1 0 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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DEPLOYMENT
president of enterprise analytics and data management at the health insurer.
After relying on power-user business analysts to create reports for them, the
users have started taking matters into their own hands, added Taylor, who
now is president of Blue KCs Cobalt Talon analytics services subsidiary.
Theres something less intimidating about someone taking a mobile de-
vice and being shown how to do advanced reporting and analytics at their
ngertips as opposed to doing that on a laptop, he said. Now were able to
push out data to those who were dependent on others to get them what they
needed without them being afraid [of analyzing the data themselves].
Steve Spar, chief information ofcer at HealthHelp, said the provider of ra-
diology management services for insurers and physicians needed more user-
friendly software that would enable an expanded base of business workers to
access its BI data. While the IT group had done what Spar describes as heavy
lifting in the companys enterprise data warehouse to build in pre-aggregated
analytics metrics for users, he said that generating reports still required skills
in using SQL and other programming languages. That made it difcult for
people outside of IT to access data directly from the data warehousea situ-
ation that Spar and his team set out to rectify.
We wanted something that was interactive and visually oriented and
not something that required a lot of custom programming, Spar said. Be-
fore, people would put in a ticket and wait to get back a report or graph, and
it was all hinged on what the analysts were doing that day. Now, with self-
service software in place, workers in HealthHelps client services department
can drill into customer data, analyze it and send their ndings to customers
without any interaction with the IT staff.
SELF-SERVICE TOOLS ADD VISUAL APPEAL
Data visualization capabilities built into self-service software can also help
make BI ndings easier for users to grasp, said Claudia Imhoff, president and
founder of consulting company Intelligent Solutions Inc. That could be a key
capability for some organizations or groups of users in a company, depending
on their needs.
1 1 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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DEPLOYMENT
Weve come a long way in making BI tools easy to usethats always been
the mantra, Imhoff said. But where weve not done so well and where we
still have some challenges is making the information easy to consume in a
format users understand.
In addition, companies heading into the selection process might want to
consider other types of functionality that can help plug gaps in BI processes.
For example, self-service BI tools with built-in collaboration capabilities,
such as a chat feature, could encourage users to share information and work
together on data analysis.
Users can talk about what theyre nding, McKnight said. Not so much
Hey, I ran this reportis anyone interested? But more collaborating over
the ndings and getting to some business results, all while looking at the
same data and potentially running another query.
For IT and BI managers, robust monitoring tools that can be used to over-
see self-service systems and manage use of the tools are a mustespecially
given that theyll get the blame for poor system performance. IT needs to
better monitor performance to head off runaway queries and convoluted
and complex analytics that run in a highly inefcient fashion, Imhoff said.
You need that kind of visibility so you can say to users, You need additional
training. n
1 2 THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SELF- SERVI CE BI PROGRAMS
Home
Editors Note
Self-Service
Software Broadens
BI Usage, Reduces
Reliance on IT
Recipe for
Self-Service BI Calls
for Mix of Flexibility,
Governance
Self-Service
BI Tools Require
Custom Fit for
Diferent Users
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ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
BETH STACKPOLE is a freelance writer
who has been covering the intersec-
tion of technology and business for
more than 25 years for a variety of
publications and websites, including
SearchBusinessAnalytics.com, Search
DataManagement.com and other Tech-
Target sites. Email her at bstack@
stackpolepartners.com.
The Secrets of Successful
Self-Service BI Programs is a
SearchBusinessAnalytics.com
e-publication.
Jason Sparapani
Managing Editor, E-Publications
Melanie Luna
Managing Editor
Craig Stedman
Executive Editor
Linda Koury
Director of Online Design
Mike Bolduc
Publisher
mbolduc@techtarget.com
Ed Laplante
Director of Sales
elaplante@techtarget.com
TechTarget
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