BICC Conceptual Overview

The Business Intelligence
Competency Center (BICC)
Andrew Marks

Naming Conventions
Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC)
 So if you aren’t part of it, or don’t have one, your incompetent?
 We use this term because it is generally used by many of the analysts who cover BI
Business Intelligence Centre of Excellence (BICOE)
 As opposed to being just mediocre?
Business Intelligence Proficiency Center (BIPC)
 Less demeaning than calling someone incompetent is saying they aren’t proficient.
Business Intelligence Operations (BIO)
 BIO has a nice ring to it; especially for a healthcare or biotech company
 But this center is more than just operations
Business Intelligence Organizational Network Infrastructure Center (BIONIC)
 The name is confusing but BIONIC is a pretty cool acronym
Business Intelligence Backbone Operations (BIBO)
 BIBO sounds like it could be the name of a chimp at your local zoo
Don’t focus on the name; It’s the concept that matters most!

Current State / Future State
BI Enterprise Deployments & BI Success Model
BI Competency Center (BICC)
BICC Organizational Model
Service Offerings
How To Get Started
Conclusion
Agenda

Current State
Narrow understanding of Business Intelligence
Lots of deployments, requests or needs
 Clamoring around BI capabilities
Can’t keep up with demand
 Constantly behind the curve
 Afraid to let “them” know what’s available for fear of not being able to
meet demand
Lack of SME’s on platform
Lack best practices or standards
 Ensure predictable, repeatable results
Inadequate requirements gathering or understanding
Assets being manually leveraged / non-strategic usage
Lack of confidence in product and support team

Ideal Future State
Holistic view of Business Intelligence
Deliberate Growth
 Infrastructure growth based on anticipated or predicted usage growth
Development of architecture expertise and domain
knowledge
 BI Functional & Technical expertise
 BI Analysts & Tool Specialists for capabilities mapping & evangelism
Understand & Implement a true BICC
 Capabilities – Technical & Strategic
 Staffing Levels
 How to become self-sustaining
 Strategic Staff Augmentation

What is a BI Enterprise Deployment?
Supports multiple BI applications across enterprise
Built on common BI Backbone
Necessitates development of common procedures
 Ensure efficient growth, ample performance, and appropriate support
Supports entire enterprise and/or extended enterprise (extranet)
Considered a Tier 1 application
 Very strategic
 High visibility
 Every internal organization can leverage BI
Every employee and/or customer may access it
 Tremendous potential exposure
 It has to be deployed well and supportable

Why a Backbone and BICC?
First Project Maintain/Evolve
Second Project Maintain/Evolve
Third Project Maintain/Evolve
Fourth Project Maintain/Evolve
Fifth Project Maintain/Evolve
ADOPTION RATE
ENTERPRIS
E
As additional projects roll in, the need for centralized control and
well-defined process becomes KEY to maintaining success
Time
Numberofapplications
Common Issues
• Higher Total Cost of Ownership
• Lower User Satisfaction
• Improper Usage
• Resources
DEPARTMENT
AL
Driving Force Behind BI Backbone & BICC

Achieving the BI Success Model
What does it take to achieve the BI Success Model?

Worst Practices – Where no BICC Gets you
Universe Development
 Situation: Teradata Universe with 3000+ objects
 Result: 30 min. loads; difficult to work with; extensive change control
planning; challenge to regression test; poor report performance; no ad-
hoc usefulness due to its size
Data Warehouse/Data Mart
 Situation: Data warehouse structure based on data sources/load
 Result: Data warehouse isn’t optimized; data must be aggregated
multiple times; reporting performance is poor and results are
questionable
Architecture
 Situation: Deploying Production BI infrastructure on VMWare
 Result: Unsupported platform; unstable infrastructure; poor performance
Staffing Worst Practice Example
 Situation: Cheap 3rd
Party contractors with “Crystal Reports” on resume
 Result: No best practices employed in building a complex report (100
sub-reports); poor performance; unusable results; wasted15 man-months

BICC – Focus Model
PMO/Scope
Arch/Support
Policies&
Procedures
Data
Training
Staffing
Evangelism
BI Backbone
BI Competency Center
Custom
Applications
ERP DataRDBMS
Data
Legacy
Data
Web Data Customer
Data
Supplier Data
Best Practices

Guiding users in self-service to meet their BI needs,
 Training end-users on how to use the data; leverage solutions available
 BICC has leverage instead of having to create every report or query itself
 When necessary - performing ad hoc or complex analysis for the business
• The BICC’s personnel should be analytic experts.
• When the analysis becomes repetitive, it should become self-service
Establishing standards for BI tools throughout the enterprise
 Ensuring the analytic approach used across the enterprise is consistent.
 The BICC connects various parts of the enterprise that have similar needs and are
experiencing similar problems.
Coordinating use and reuse of business metadata in the enterprise
 Helping to define and integrate definitions of the relevant business terms.
Communication and subscription of business users to the BI environment.
 Effectively understanding and communicating with end-users
• Business analysts acting as a conduit between IT and the business
 Maintaining a reasonable level of business involvement and use of the BI tools
• Evangelism and capabilities mapping
 Ensuring that best practices are being adhered to
BICC - Guiding Principles

Communication is Crucial
 Support team must communicate succinctly with users
• To sustain the environment
• Respond to change quickly
 Best practices in place to drive communication that supports growth
BI needs to evolve along with the Organization
 Key to an evolving BI culture is tracking organizational growth
 Support structure growth should coincide with increases in the information
consumer community
 Incorporate changes and enhancements to BI functional capabilities
Keys to Success:
 Trained and experienced individuals
 Business Analysts that understand the functionality of the solution and can
communicate with the business effectively
 Best Practices in line with organizational constraints and objectives
 Executive Sponsorship AND Executive Users
BICC - Objectives

BICC – How to Get There: Teaching You To Fish
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish;
and you have fed him for a lifetime” — Author unknown

Knowledge / Skills Development
 Formal training delivered to BICC resources
 Mentoring by experienced consultants
Organizational Development
 Securing the appropriate staff to support the BICC
 Ensuring that ancillary teams will support BICC
Best Practices Development
 Quality Assurance
 Business Analysts that understand the functionality of the solution
and can communicate with the business effectively
 Best Practices in line with organizational constraints and objectives
 Service Offerings
Staffing
 Compliment internal team with external resources to mitigate risk
BICC – How To Get There

BICC –Teaching YOUR Users to Fish
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish;
and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how
hungry he is.”—Author unknown

BI Tool
Specialist
BI Tool
Specialist
Security TeamSecurity Team
BICC Organizational Model: Sample Role Structure
Business Intelligence
Sr. Executive
Sr. Executive
DW Project
Manager
DW Project
Manager
BI Tool
Specialist
BI Tool
Specialist
DW Operations
Manager
DW Operations
Manager
Data Quality
Lead
Data Quality
Lead
ETL
Lead
ETL
Lead
Meta Data
Lead
Meta Data
Lead
Security ManagerSecurity Manager
Infrastructure
Lead
Infrastructure
Lead
Business Unit
Support
Business Unit
Support
Data Steward
Champion
Data Steward
Champion
Business AnalystBusiness Analyst
Competency Center
Competency Center
Content SpecialistContent Specialist Training SpecialistTraining Specialist
Education
Lead
Education
Lead
Key Relationship
Data Architect/
Dba
Data Architect/
Dba
BI Business
Analyst
BI Business
Analyst
BOBJ Program
Manager
BOBJ Program
Manager

BI Tool
Specialist
BI Tool
Specialist
Security TeamSecurity Team
BICC Organizational Model: Sample Role Structure
Sr. Executive
Sr. Executive
DW Project
Manager
DW Project
Manager
BI Tool
Specialist
BI Tool
Specialist
DW Operations
Manager
DW Operations
Manager
Data Quality
Lead
Data Quality
Lead
ETL
Lead
ETL
Lead
Meta Data
Lead
Meta Data
Lead
Security ManagerSecurity Manager
Infrastructure
Lead
Infrastructure
Lead
Business Unit
Support
Business Unit
Support
Data Steward
Champion
Data Steward
Champion
Business AnalystBusiness Analyst
Competency Center
Competency Center
Content SpecialistContent Specialist Training SpecialistTraining Specialist
Education
Lead
Education
Lead
Key Relationship
Data
Architect/Dba
Data
Architect/Dba
BI Business
Analyst
BI Business
Analyst

Service Offerings (PMO)
Development of repeatable predictable approach
 Deployment of “Solutions” to support the business
 Handbook of tasks, objectives & deliverables
Service Offerings
 Focused on specific functionality
• Structured Reports (Crystal)
• Ad-Hoc Query & Analysis (Web Intelligence)
• Universe Development
• Dashboards
• Performance Management
 Amalgamation of Corporate BI best practices and deployment tasks
• Specific to client environment and technical requirements
Development of Deployment Costing
 Understanding of costs associated with functionality requested
 Allows development of ROI model

Proposal: COE Scope
COE Scoping Effort
 Objectives:
• Scope out the development for an internal BICC
• Determine internal skill levels required to support BICC
• Identify knowledge gaps and recommend training courses
• Establish Internal BOBJ deployment Inventory
• Develop consolidation plan
» Approach/Structure
» Timeline
» Resource Requirements (Client & BOBJ)
• Determine initial “net-new” deployments to focus on
• Determine scope of Best Practices framework
• Determine education plan/path for internal resources
 Deliverables
• Documentation of findings and recommendations
• Development of proposed BICC organization chart
• Recommended strategic staffing to mentor/compliment team
• Establish preliminary project plan to achieve success
• Determine appropriate “Service Offerings” to focus on development
 Resources:
• Principal Project Manager
• Senior Technical Architect
 Cost: $64,000 + expenses

Proposal: Strategic Staff Augmentation (VPA)
Project Management
 Initial project deployments during COE development
 Future larger project deployments to supplement internal PMO
Business Analysis Assistance
 Requirements Gathering & Visioning
 Capabilities Mapping (ensuring the right functionality is being leveraged)
Technical Staff Augmentation
 Specific technical resources to augment deployment teams
 Covering tasks such as:
• Universe & Report Architecture & Development
• Dashboard development
• SDK integration
• Security Integration
• Data Warehouse Design
Reporting Factory
 Off-site / Offshore / Near-Shore Development
 Production Support / Tech Support / Sustaining Engineering

Conclusions
Communication with BI consumers is required to align
objectives
An enterprise BI deployment requires an enterprise
class support plan
Establishment of a BI Competency Center requires:
 Educated and capable support individuals
 Understanding of current and future business intelligence needs
 Best practices to ensure standards are established and maintained
Support for a BI backbone must be proactive
Specific roles need to be defined in order to succeed
Leveraging BOBJ consulting for strategic staff
augmentation will mitigate risk and help achieve
“flawless execution”

BI Competency Center
Appendix Slides

BICC Roles: Staffing & Growth
Business Intelligence Senior Executive
 Description:
• Responsible for the day-to-day BI operations; technical management
• Interfaces with executive sponsor and business unit exec sponsors
 Drivers For Growth:
• Number of BI COE Employees
DW Operations Manager
 Description:
• Responsible for all Data Warehouse operations
• Platform operations, technical management, project management
 Drivers for Growth:
• Number of DW employees
• Number of data sources, data marts & locations

DW Project Manager
 Description:
• Responsible for Data Warehouse or Data Mart deployments
• Understanding of data warehouse design standards; methodology
• Number of projects; data warehouse instances; data mart instances
BI Business Analyst
 Description:
• Understands functional aspects of BOBJ Suite
• Understands COE service offerings
• Performs formal requirements gathering and gap analysis with business units
• Develops estimates of effort for functional deployments
• Ensures that appropriate capabilities are being leveraged given desired outcome
• Develops preliminary project approach and project charter
• Number of Business Units; projects; project complexity; end-users

Data Architect/Dba
 Description:
• Responsible for the day-to-day Data architecture and Dba related activities
• Interfaces with business unit data architects and BI business analysts
• SQL, Data Modeling, Capacity Planning, Tuning
• Number of database instances, tables, projects
Security Manager
 Description:
• Responsible for understanding security requirements and constraints
• Interfaces with corporate security team; Technical Management
• Number of end users & applications requiring security integrations

BI Tool Specialist
 Description:
• Understands functional and technical aspects of the BOBJ Suite
• May require more than one resource depending on scope of suite deployed
• Designer; Web Intelligence; Dashboard Manager; Crystal Reports
• Number of data marts; applications; projects; end-users
Meta Data Lead
 Description:
• Manages meta-data for various deployments supporting BI Tool Specialists
• Ensures Best Practices are being adhered
• Designer; Crystal Business Views; Ad-Hoc Reporting
• Number of data marts; applications; projects; end-users

Data Quality Lead
 Description:
• Establishes data quality standards
• Ensures data source quality is sufficient to meet business needs
• Same person as Data Architect?
• Number of database instances; tables; projects
ETL Lead
 Description:
• Develops & Maintains ETL processes to populate Data Mart
• Ensures Best Practices are being adhered
• Works with Data Architect & Data Quality Lead
• Number of data sources & data marts; projects

Infrastructure Lead
 Description:
• Responsible for the infrastructure, it’s maintenance and growth
• Ensures infrastructure growth meets anticipated demand
• In-depth understanding of BOBJ architecture and services; Unix; Windows
• Number of servers and operating systems
Education Lead
 Description:
• Develops & Maintains Education offerings for BICC employees and end-users
• Leverages BOBJ curriculum; deploys & maintains Knowledge Accelerator content
• Number of projects; number of end-users; functionality being leveraged

BICC - Best Practices
Some of the topics covered include:
 User Requirement Definition & Documentation
 Data Access Methods
 Presentation Methods
 Change Control Process
 Universe Development Policies, Procedures and Processes
 Report Development Policies, Procedures & Process
 Quality Assurance Policies, Process & Procedures
 Application Integration Review
 Security Integration Review & Analysis
 User Administration & Support Processes & Procedures
 System Auditing Policies
 Support

Leverage our experience implementing thousands of BI systems
BICC - Training as a Success Enabler

BICC Conceptual Overview

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