1. Assess and Optimize BI Operations
Focus on delivering timely, quality, and affordable information to enable fast and effective business decisions.
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2. Introduction
This blueprint will help the Head of BI (i.e. BI Manager or Director of BI) improve BI speed, quality, and cost by assessing and optimizing their BI operation.
This research is designed for the Head of BI who:
This research will help you:
Has BI stakeholders dissatisfied with the overall performance of the BI operation.
Is dissatisfied with the inability of the BI operation to return requests to the business in a timely fashion.
Is dissatisfied with the inability of the BI operation to produce quality BI deliverables that meet business requirements.
Is experiencing rising operational BI costs.
Determine an initial target state BI operating model.
Assess your current BI organization structure, processes, people, application functionality, and performance.
Refine the initial target state BI operating model.
Rank and select gaps to plan for improvement.
Develop an improvement plan, obtain official sign-off, and execute the optimization project.
Track improvements and measure BI performance and value.
Communicate and sell the benefits to stakeholders.

3. Executive Summary Situation
The Head of BI is experiencing slow, ineffective, and costly business intelligence but is responsible for enabling the business to make timely, accurate, and affordable decisions.
Even with a restricted budget, the Head of BI doesn’t have to over-engineer the BI operation to satisfy the needs of the business.
The Head of BI should assess and optimize business intelligence operations and design a BI operating model to provide effective business intelligence at an affordable cost.
Complication
BI operations that are run without the required operating model components (organization structure, process, people, and application functionality) are prone to failure.
Plan of action
Determine target state BI operating model. Determine BI operation goals and measures. Understand the four components of the BI operating model. Understand Info-Tech’s three BI operating models. Determine initial target state BI operating model.
Assess current state BI operations. Assess organization structure. Assess processes. Assess people. Assess application functionality. Capture current state performance measures.
Refine, select gaps, plan improvements, and execute. Refine target state BI operating model. Identify and list gaps. Rank and select gaps for improvement. Define improvement initiatives to close gaps. Analyze initiative benefits and costs. Obtain approval and official sign-off for the optimization project. Execute the optimization project.
Track improvements and measure BI performance and value. Track the progress of improvement initiatives. Develop a BI operation performance and value measurement approach. Monitor BI operation performance and value.
Communicate and sell the benefits to stakeholders. Communicate BI’s benefits to stakeholders. Craft value statements supported by value measures and proof points. Promote BI’s business value. Create a communication plan.

4. Best-Practice Toolkit Guided Implementations
Three ways to complete this project: Do-It-Yourself, Guided Implementations, or Onsite Workshop
Best-Practice Toolkit
Download and customize Info-Tech’s tools and templates to develop your project deliverables.
Use this do-it-yourself Best-Practice Toolkit to help you complete this project. The slides in this Blueprint will walk you step-by-step through every phase of your project with supporting tools and templates ready for you to use.
Guided Implementations
Speak to an Info-Tech subject matter expert for advice throughout the project.
Arrange to speak to an Info-Tech expert at key milestones to ensure maximum project value.
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Onsite Workshop
Accelerate your project with an onsite, expert Info-Tech facilitator to run a workshop for you.
To inquire about or request a workshop:
Call , contact your account representative ( or for more information.
Your account representative and workshop coordinator will follow up to help determine the cost, timing, and other details of the workshop.

5. Guided Implementation points in the BI Operations Optimization project
Book a Guided Implementation Today: Info-Tech is just a phone call away and can assist you with your project. Our expert Analysts can guide you to successful project completion.
Here are the suggested Guided Implementation points in the BI Operations Optimization project:
Section 1: Determine target state BI operating model.
Determine BI operation goals and measures. Understand the four components of the BI operating model and Info-Tech’s three BI operating models. Determine initial target state BI operating model.
Section 2: Assess current state BI operations.
Assess organization structure, processes, people, application functionality, BI operations performance.
Section 3: Refine, select gaps, plan improvements, and execute.
Refine target state BI operating model. Identify and list gaps. Assess and select gaps for improvement. Define improvement initiatives to close gaps. Analyze initiative benefits and costs. Obtain approval and official sign-off for the optimization project. Execute the optimization project.
Section 4: Track improvements, and measure BI performance and value.
Track the progress of the improvement initiative. Develop a BI operation performance and value measurement approach. Monitor BI operation performance and value.
Section 5: Communicate and sell the benefits to stakeholders.
Communicate BI’s benefits to stakeholders. Craft value statements supported by value measures and proof points. Promote BI’s business value. Create a communication plan.
This symbol signifies when you’ve reached a Guided Implementation point in your project.
To enroll, send an to or call and ask for the Guided Implementation Coordinator.

6. Make the case for an optimized BI operating model
What’s in this section:
Sections:
Pain points of the BI manager.
Differences between the BI program and BI operating model.
Three main benefits of an optimized BI operation: timely, effective, and affordable.
Case studies.
Proven five-stage approach for the BI operation optimization project.
Determine target state BI operating model
Assess current state BI operations
Refine, select gaps, plan improvements, and execute
Track improvements and measure BI performance and value
Communicate and sell the benefits to stakeholders

7. Execute the BI operation optimization project to avoid untimely, ineffective, and unaffordable information
Your organization does not need to over-engineer its BI operations or spend a lot of money meet the needs of the business.
Pain or difficulties for the BI manager
Business impact
Organization Structure
Lack of leadership and support for BI.
Lack of executive sponsorship and funding for BI.
Reporting structures and lines of communication are not well defined.
Delayed information delivery time due to an ineffective reporting structure.
Low information quality due to lack of funding and accountability for BI.
Process
Inability to effectively organize, consolidate, and manage BI operations across the enterprise.
Business intelligence management practices are not well defined.
High operational costs due to redundant processes across departments, divisions, etc.
Low information quality due to mismanaged or non-existent BI management practices.
People
BI staff do not possess required skills and proficiency to execute BI management practices.
Inadequate BI staff capacity to execute information requests.
Low information quality due to poor requirements gathering, modeling, analysis, etc.
Delayed information delivery time due to lack of staff capacity.
Application Functionality
Redundant sets of BI tools and application functionalities.
Low BI tool adoption rates and end-user satisfaction levels.
Increasing maintenance and support costs due to excess supply of BI tools and functions.
Loss in end-user productivity due to lack of satisfaction and tool adoption.
We’re in the bittersweet position where BI is the constraint resource and therefore dictates the strategy to the business.
— BI Manager, Wholesale Company

8. Achieve BI operational excellence by optimizing speed, quality, and cost with a BI operating model
At a high level, an organization has reached BI operational excellence if three criteria are met: timeliness, effectiveness, affordability.
Assessment criteria for
BI operations:
Speed
Quality
Cost
Timely
Effective
Affordable
BI Operational Excellence
Business stakeholder complaints
Low BI tool and deliverable adoption
Low BI tool and deliverable satisfaction
Slow time to information
Increasing operational costs
Top five signs your organization is not experiencing BI operational excellence:
We can improve BI environments in several ways. First, we can improve the speed with which we create BI objects by insisting that the environments are designed with flexibility and adaptability in mind. Second, we can produce higher quality deliverables by ensuring that IT collaborate with the business on every deliverable. Finally, we can reduce the costs of BI by giving access to the environment to knowledgeable business users and encouraging a self-service function.
— Claudia Imhoff, Founder, Boulder BI Brain Trust & President, Intelligent Solutions Inc.

9. Understand that the BI operating model is different than the overarching BI program
The BI operating model focuses on the aspects of BI that can be altered in the short term to improve operational performance.
An operating model is the abstract representation of how an organization operates across process, organization, and technology domains in order to accomplish its function.
— A Method for Identifying Process Reuse Opportunities to Enhance the Operating Model.
Info-Tech will take the operation model concept and apply it to the BI environment. Info-Tech defines the components of the BI operating model as:
Organization structure.
Process.
People.
Application Functionality.
While technology is fixed in the near term, the components listed above are all capable of changing in the near term to meet the needs of the business.
Components
BI Program
BI Operating Model
Strategy
BI Strategy Y N
Org. Structure
Business Intelligence Center of Excellence
Process
BI Management Practices
People
BI Roles and Responsibilities
BI Skills and Proficiency
Technology
BI Stack
BI Application Functionality

10. Timely: Improve information delivery time with an optimized BI operating model
When a business event occurs, there are three potential areas for latency, all of which the BI team can address in the operating model:
Data latency: Time between the business event occurring and the data being ready for analysis.
The business community and BI team share responsibility for reducing data latency. It is the responsibility of the BI team to pull relevant data from storage and prepare this data for analysis.
Analysis latency: Time between the data being prepared for analysis, and the actual delivery of information to the business.
The BI team holds full responsibility for reducing analysis latency, and increasing business value. By assessing the processes in place and skill sets within the team, opportunities to improve emerge.
Decision latency: Time between information being delivered to the business, and their business decision based on the information.
BI can help reduce the chance of decision latency by ensuring that BI functionality and metadata management enable quick decision making when information is delivered to the business.
Source: A Business Approach to Right-Time Decision Making, TDWI
Info-Tech Insight
The BI team has a responsibility to the business to ensure opportunities are not lost due to slow time to information. By considering speed of delivery as one of the three components of BI operational excellence, the organization ensures that value is not destroyed due to slow processes within the BI department.

11. Effective: Improve information quality with an optimized BI operating model
The BI operating model is considered effective when all four criteria are met:
Investment in maintaining BI application functionality is producing value to the business.
Effective Business Intelligence
Focused on Business Requirements
Tailored Functionality Based on Users’ Needs
Use KPIs to Monitor Performance
Simplify Complex Processes
Facilitates measuring performance, and re-assessing when necessary.
Lowers BI unit costs, allowing for investments in innovative practices.
Yields higher benefits per BI output.
92% of business people said that BI had contributed somewhat or significantly to company performance (higher than the number of IT people that considered their BI projects to be moderately or very successful).
— Cindi Howson, quoted in What Does a World-Class BI Program Look Like?
Info-Tech Insight
The impact of an effective BI operation is felt in two areas: the quality of the final deliverables, and the efficiency of the BI team as projects and requests require less rework, thereby increasing throughput.

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