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February 11, 2010
Thinking that technology (really) matters
Looking at the amount of time that business people spend choosing the “right” BI technology, you would think that BI platform selection must have a significant bearing on the ultimate success of BI.
In practice, BI software platforms have little impact on the project’s ability to deliver value. Clearly defined goals, knowing who and how to affect these goals and the desire of the business to succeed are the key elements of a successful project.
BI projects are business projects, not software projects. Installing BI platform software doesn’t deliver value or a BI solution. Unless you have a uniquely complex or specific issue clearly addressed by a niche software tool, you won’t be able to recover the time spent on assessing and comparing BI platforms against each other or a list of vague expected business requirements.
Another timewaster to be avoided is theoretical and detailed dialogues regarding performance and scalability when nobody knows “how big this thing will get”. Scalability and performance are architecture and configuration issues that have little to do with product selection and nothing to do with business value. Count the users, size the data, buy the hardware, hire someone competent to configure it and move on. If you are lucky enough to have a rapidly expanding BI solution that is delivering value, then adding hardware or even moving to a new platform will be justified. Don’t waste time, or allow software venders to waste time with hypothetical or general “future proofing” discussions that do little more than inflate software costs and cause delay to value creation.
Posted by Kelly Lautt and John E West at February 11, 2010 1:00 PM
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