Going Commando with Your Business Intelligence

I'll just come right out and say it: when it comes to the use of Business Intelligence, we are taking the advice of the experts much too literally. The experts and deep thinkers of the BI world talk a lot about discipline in the form of 'control', 'structure' and 'process'. Unfortunately, this kind of guidance is often mistaken as ‘must be used in EVERY situation’.

We all know the world isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of place and this is certainly true in the world of business. Claudia Imhoff recently touched on this idea in ''Just-in-time' data is just fine for business intelligence':

The traditional thinking around business intelligence and analytics is that every piece of data must undergo thorough transformation and cleansing before entering the data warehouse. Today, this line of thinking has changed.

+1! Almost 15 years ago I read an article from the pithy folks at the Motley Fool, 'How a Startup Evolves'. Needless to say, the article stuck with me. The Fools were using Robert Cringley's book 'Accidental Empires' to give investment advice. But I think they really should/could have been talking about Business Intelligence tools: one-size-fits-all doesn’t work in military operations, in investing, and certainly not in the world of BI.

Cringley and the folks at the Fool broke military operations (and companies) up 3 'waves': in the first wave are the commandos (i.e. your typical startup), the second wave consists of infantry (your medium-size business), and finally the third wave are the 'police' (your mega-corporation). Thinking about your use of business intelligence, each wave would certainly have different data and tool needs. After all, commandos rarely use tanks, right?

But I'd go even farther, reminding organizations not to classify themselves in only one of these waves. The reality of business is even more complex than 3 simply waves, with more nuance: different parts of your business are at different stages. Some departments are akin to the 'third wave', very stable and oriented around repeatable operations (such as cashing a check or selling a hamburger). But other parts of your business are probably less predictable, like the dynamic 'first wave of commandos' of a military operation.

I appreciate these subtleties (and particularly that first wave of 'data commandos') because that's where my customers are. I often see organizations use tools and techniques in support of that 'first wave' part of their business that just aren't that adaptable. In spite of the fact that not every BI toolset is the same as the next (read the latest Forrester 'BI Wave' or Gartner 'BI Magic Quadrant' and you'll see what I mean), we regularly see companies giving solid-yet-slow-and-very-unagile BI tools to parts of their organization that really should be getting the nimblest, most adaptable commando weapons possible.

And that's where I think Cringley was really on to something. Not every tool fits every situation. The next time you think of being 'disciplined' about your BI, ask yourself if it's disciplined to do the same thing in EVERY circumstance. If you find that your one and only BI toolset is treated as the answer for every single BI need, there's probably an opportunity to arm your commandos, your soldiers and/or your police with better weapons.