Everyone’s talking about collaboration — but what culture and tools does it take to succeed? Six principles emerged from a discussion among experts at the Pacific Northwest BI Summit in July.
Even among this moderate crowd, an old tension showed itself. BI has always had what I’ve thought of as “data police,” those who stress data quality, security, and process at the expense of natural workflows. On the other end, “data libertarians” have used self-service tools to wrest control of their data analysis and data itself — an approach that has made more sense to me. If BI is about business, why leave it up to a cabal of technicians?
Read all about it in my BI This Week column. It appears tonight. Here.
Ultimately BI is about driving business decisions. If IT forces tool on the business users, then can an organization truly get the insights that are there for discovery? Likely not. Business users need autonomy and flexibility, not a hard-handed IT department. IT should be a partner, not a dictator.