The Vital BI Maintenance Process
Information Management Magazine, July 2004
One key element for having a positive return on investment on BI solutions is the maintenance - making sure the solution is optimally used once it is implemented. However, maintenance for BI solutions differs sharply from the maintenance process for operational systems such as ERP systems.
Most larger organizations today are aware of business intelligence (BI) systems and how they can help improve business performance; and many such systems have been implemented. However, the success rate for BI solutions is not much more impressive than that of other IT systems. Success rates of BI implementations are affected by:
- Underlying operational systems and their processes, which are not adapted for these kinds of applications. The data extractions for the BI systems become difficult because the mostly normalized database structure in operational systems is good for updating data, but not for exporting data to other systems.
- Poor data quality (that can often go unnoticed in operational systems). This poor data quality surfaces and leads to unpleasant surprises with BI solutions. This, in turn, will often seriously delay the BI implementation and render it difficult.
- Political aspects. When implementing systems that will democratize the flow of information, the political aspects in an organization may be formidable. Some managers may have problems handling such an increased flow of information, while other business units may get the same information and be able to act upon it.
These factors, when they exist, will usually show themselves at a relatively early stage during the BI implementation. What will not show itself early is the necessary maintenance charge (i.e., the resources needed to keep the system alive and constantly adapted to the business users' needs). This maintenance charge is often severely underestimated by the project team responsible for implementing the BI system.
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Maintaining a successful BI system is not the same thing as maintaining an operational system. Operational systems, such as ERP solutions, often handle defined business processes that explain and help the business (e.g., how to handle orders or product shipments). As a consequence, the maintenance for operational systems is often centered around improving or modifying already known and implemented process-based business activities.
BI systems, on the other hand, are providing business users with reports and analyses. These business activities are rarely predefined processes. Instead, the business users are relatively free to conduct reporting and analyses as they wish.
Because BI processes are usually not implemented within a BI system, the maintenance process for BI systems tends to be more vague and difficult to define. It is difficult to try to determine how the business users will work with a BI system if they are given the freedom to do their own reports and analyses. Also, the business users, if they have had little experience with BI, often do not know exactly what they want from a BI solution without having worked with it beforehand. The attitude is often, "We know what we want when we see it." Therefore, successful BI solutions should be developed iteratively.
As a consequence, it is difficult to estimate the workload that the maintenance will represent. If the maintenance is insufficient, the business users may not obtain the information they need. The BI system will then be used less, yielding less return on the investment made.
BI Maintenance Characteristics
The difference in the structure between operational systems and BI systems and the resulting differences in maintenance are often not fully understood by the organization implementing a BI solution. As a result, insufficient resources are often allocated for BI maintenance. The main differences between the BI and the operational systems that, in turn, will affect the maintenance process are listed in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Differences Between BI and Operational Systems
The differences mentioned in Figure 1 will have important repercussions on the maintenance process. Even if BI systems seldom have predefined processes explaining how to do reports and analyses, the maintenance can and should be defined in a process. This process handles education, support and further development.
The user education will develop over time in a way that does not correspond to the education for the usage of operational systems. As there are rarely any fixed ways of working with BI within an organization, new needs will lead to new applications that will necessitate further education, all of which will evolve over time. The user education will have to constantly change in order to explain the new solutions. However, this evolution is normal in most business situations. Most will have difficulties defining a non-process based way of working, and understanding of BI needs will improve only after having worked directly with such solutions. If this user evolution is not taken into account when implementing the system, the BI system will become less and less useful over time as the user needs will evolve further and further away from the initial solution that does not evolve accordingly.
Furthermore, the support and development will be different for BI solutions. Because most BI users will learn to really take advantage of BI systems as they continue to work with them, support and development must be relatively easy. Therefore, the flexibility of the BI system and the responsible team is a must if it shall be able to respond in a timely manner to the ever new and changing user demands.
The Right BI Maintenance Approach
The project management for the initial implementation of a BI system should be fixed in well-defined processes just as it is for any other IT project (including operational systems). There are differences on how to manage BI projects compared to other IT projects, but in both cases, the projects should be run in a structured manner.
The operational system project management most often has a macro plan similar to that shown in Figure 2. Hopefully, there actually is a well-defined business case before launching the project (even though a great number of projects seem to start with only a vague business case). Also, the future maintenance and support is not part of the project, but is considered a future process for which a system maintenance team will be responsible. Compared to BI systems, the maintenance part can often be relatively small once the system is put in place.
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