In our work we frequently address questions about the organizational aspects of information strategy, data architecture, and business intelligence efforts. Several large insurance and CPG companies have BI functions that are deliberately moving from a “reporting” focus to encompass analytics and, more broadly, effective decision making that seeks to capture more value from information. In a recent workshop we were asked five specific organizational questions about a nascent BI effort inside a large organization:
- What skill sets and roles are required in a BI group?
- Who would it report to and who would lead it?
- How big should it be?
- Should somewhat related efforts in finance be combined into the new group?
- What thoughts do we have about improving data delay and quality problems stemming from multiple hand-offs?
Recognizing that it is frequently necessary to deal with organizational issues in efforts to extract value from information, and that there don’t seem to be perfect and simple answers to organizational questions, we wanted to share our thinking and hear what others have to say. Here I will address the first question and future posts will address the others.
The composition of a BI unit really depends on its objectives and charter, which ought to be clear as a bell to those involved. Assuming that the charter goes beyond “reporting” and tool maintenance, to include driving intelligent decision making through a company, here are skills and roles that should be considered in a BI organization:
- Business problem solving and business casing skills. These are resources that can clearly formulate problem statements, develop hypotheses, and lay out the hard and soft data you would need to tackle the analytics or BI problem. These resources must possess a great ability to work with business constituents and program-manage the BI projects. They also should have the judgment to figure out which solutions merit institutionalization (e.g. recurring reports based on structured data) and those that ought to be left as a one-time or ad hoc analyses.
- Advanced analytics skills. These are resources that have advanced statistics, modeling, and optimization skills. They have a great understanding of business objectives and data, and are expert at applying the analytic tools and techniques to crush hard problems with confidence. These folks typically have proficiency with technical tools like SQL, SAS, excel, etc. They can also help guide and evaluate softer forms of BI analysis like surveys, call monitoring, focus groups, etc.
- Data management skills. These are resources that can obtain, assess, integrate, and structure data from disparate sources into the data sets or repositories used for BI analysis. This is particularly useful when BI efforts include “sandbox” environments where teams have the flexibility to construct ad-hoc data marts to facilitate rapid integration and deep analysis. This may or may not be the same folks in IT. (In our company, our IT organization provides an absolutely critical support role when we construct interim repositories to support analysis. But the volume of work is not enough to demand a full-time role.)
- Tool skills. These are resources that maintain and enhance the BI tools that are used for reporting, outside of the power users that do their own work. These folks may also reside in IT.
- Governance. Usually you will need a team of senior execs from finance, actuarial (if you are in insurance), marketing, operations, and IT that guide the BI organization and monitor its demand, project selection, utilization, impact, funding, growth, migration, etc. The core team will need someone who specifically drives the governance agenda and uses the constructive governance to guide the group’s activities.
Again, the starting point in nailing this down really goes back to the charter and objectives for the group. There is no simple and formulaic answer to designing and staffing a BI group. Nevertheless, being clear on what you are setting out to accomplish and thinking critically about how this group relates to the current organization will help define roles and build the right skill mix.