On The Dashboard Effect podcast, Brick Thompson, Blue Margin CEO, and Caleb Ochs, VP of Delivery Operations, devote two episodes to essential precursors of successful BI initiatives: 1) clearly defining the impact of the project and 2) aligning the team around key metrics. 

As Brick puts it, “Lack of alignment can blow up an entire BI initiative.” 

Listen to the episodes, or read on below:

Define the Impact 

Prior to starting a BI initiative (whether it’s a full data warehouse build, or a relatively simple report), define the concrete impact on the business and how that will be measured.  

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. 

Peter Drucker

A project that isn’t clearly tied to a business need is destined to produce suboptimal reporting and marginal results. Inversely, defining the expected outcome will inform every aspect of the project design, yield greater ROI, and ensure adoption. (Read our white paper on the topic here: Dashboard Design to Ensure Adoption.)