This is a 'model case study' relating to the Business Intelligence Maturity Model.
IT Project
BI Maturity Model Stage 1
The IT Director of a Higher or Further Education institution ('The Institution') is concerned by constant complaints that data on students, faculty and support staff are inaccurate. Management also complain that data from the HR system do not agree with data from the Finance system. Preparing statutory reports is always stressful, and they are sometimes late.
The IT Director attends a meeting at which a vendor presents a Business Intelligence (BI) system. It is said to automate reporting and to improve data quality.
Data Issues Ignored
BI Maturity Model Stage 2
After discussions between data producers and the IT department, the data producers assume that the new BI system will fix all data quality, reporting speed and accuracy issues. Any work to improve data entry, data validation and data meaning is left until after the new BI system appears.
A Technical Choice
BI Maturity Model Stage 3
The IT staff review BI systems and select one that uses the Institution's preferred database and promises to interface with their Finance and Student Records data sources.
Nobody from the central administration, from planning, or from any of the data-producing or data-consuming departments is consulted or involved in the project.
A system is selected and is purchased (at approximately £50,000 to £75,000 which is available in the software budget, plus a further sum for consultancy).
Tip - Preparation
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Define practical initial goals
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Assemble a full team
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Assemble the business case (hard with no BI!)
IT-Focused Implementation
BI Maturity Model Stage 4
The software is easily installed, and a set of model reports is built by the vendor's consultant with the IT staff. (There is still no involvement from data-producers or data-users.)
The BI system is presented to the Institution's staff at an open workshop. Only a few of the relevant staff attend, but some of them are enthusiastic about the new system. Unfortunately none of the most senior management has time to attend; they are still not involved in the BI project.
Staff who attend the workshop are invited to a training session; a few attend. They begin to use the BI system and find it meets some of their needs. A few of the statutory reports are suddenly easy to produce.
Patchy and Reluctant BI Use
BI Maturity Model Stage 5
However, because senior staff (and relevant staff) have not been involved, data quality remains an issue. Inaccurate, wrongly labelled and incorrect data make their way into the new BI system. Data continue to be entered into the BI system late. Senior staff meetings continue to have frequent irascible discussions about data quality, blaming the IT systems, including the new BI system.
Those academic and support functions that have not bought into the BI system continue to use their own local databases, and complex sets of nested Excel spreadsheets. Much of the data in these local systems is not centrally available, and is not collected or labelled to consistent standards.
No Widespread Acceptance
BI Maturity Model Stage 6
In the absence of top-level involvement and support, and in the absence of detailed input from data-producers and data-consumers this project is unlikely to succeed. It will probably be seen as a failure and (at some point in the future) start over from the beginning.
While this description may read like a caricature, it is a distillation of project errors which have happened several times and have slowed or crippled several BI projects. One experienced vendor estimates that only 10 to 15 of the active 'BI Systems' in UK Educational institutions are actually accepted and working at Maturity level 4 or above.
