Engaging Your Users From Day 1

There is something very appealing about a report or dashboard that just speaks to you. There are lots of factors that contribute to this type of experience. For me the first thing that grabs me is the overall beauty of the layout. Is it using consistent formatting? Does the colour scheme appeal to the eye and make the visualizations easy to read? (white font headers on dark backgrounds are my favourite) Do I immediately zero in on an insight that I will take action on?

The funny thing is another person may look at the same dashboard and it doesn't say a word to them. Everyone's needs and insights are different, and we have to design our BI user experience to tailor to the end user. This is why it is so critical to engage our users at the earliest stages of the process.

My recommendation would be start with what business questions we are trying to answer, and what actions this will generate. Before the first mock-up or list of data elements is created, make sure we know what business value we are trying to deliver. Once you have determined the problem we are trying to solve, then understand what data you need to source. This is a critical step, at this point we should be working with our users on what data we need and how that data is generated. We can use this time to establish the quality of our data, and engage our business in ensuring that the data will meet our needs.

An interesting experiment at this point is to make the raw data available and allow the user to play. Let them at a cube or even an Excel pivot table, and see what insights can be pulled from the data. This will help us understand what key metrics and dashboards will speak back to the questions we are trying to answer and the actions we are going to take as a result.

If your users are engaged from day 1, you will save time and your users will be raving fans!

 

Don’t Follow the White Rabbit

There is something special ingrained in the soul of a BI practitioner.  We love to think of all the twists and turns that we can take to analyze the data we are working with.  This comes in the form of dashboards with countless dials, traffic lights and indicators, graphs with multiple series, axis and dimensions, and grids and grids of good ol’ tabular data.  All this stuff makes us very, very happy with ourselves.

Ok checkpoint, a couple issues with this approach.  First of all, all this data can detract from the very business question you are trying to answer with your analysis.  Think about it, do you know of any user that actually has the time to sit down and analyze 200 points of information on a single report?  No, we need to enable our users to make the best decision in the least amount of time.  There are likely 2 to 3 key data points that will get them there.  Yes, it is ok to show basic trends and change indicators, but for Pete’s sake keep it simple.

Secondly, the more we go with this smorgasbord approach to BI we are encouraging requirements bloat in the next BI project or iteration.  Users will simply say to myself: “I should ask for everything I think I might need just so I know I can get it if I need it.”  Why wouldn’t they think that, when that is how we have delivered BI to date?

Fight the urge to go down the rabbit hole; strive to deliver 80% of the value with 20% of the work.  How much more value could you drive for your organization if you can quickly move on to the next opportunity rather than lingering in analysis paralysis?

The BI Experience: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

The enemy of BI adoption is treating all your users the same.  Each role and person in your organization will use your BI platform differently, so you must deliver a solution that fits each individuals needs.  You should consider aspects such as tool complexity, usage of visualizations, navigation and accessibility.

Executive Users will be best served with high level dashboards, mobile access, and real time alerts.  The typical executive (an effective one anyways) doesn’t spend a great deal of time behind their computer.  When they do, they are likely short on time and are looking for the bottom line on their organization’s performance.  Dashboards are great for displaying all the relevant information on a single screen, allowing your user to have a one stop shop for when they are at their computer.  With most of an executive’s time comprising of meetings and talking with folks, having mobile access from their handheld device (BlackBerry, iPhone, etc.) will provide them with metrics where and when they need them.  Couple this with real-time alerts via email, and your Executive users will be able to leverage your BI platform according to their needs.

In contrast, front line users (Customer Service Representatives, Sales Representatives, etc.) need intelligence that is bundled in with their business processes.  To drive maximum effectiveness you want to inject Business Intelligence into the operational systems these people use every day.  This can take forms such as surfacing a Customer Lifetime Value score to assist with save strategies when a customer is calling to disconnect, or providing real time alerts into your Customer Relationship Management system when a critical order deadline has passed.  You certainly don’t want these roles that are the face to the customer wasting time flipping between their operational screens and the BI portal!

The way you provide a tailored user experience to your BI clients is critical to drive adoption towards the goal of pervasive BI.  Spend extra time and attention to this aspect when you are planning any major BI deployment and you will reap the benefits.

Related Posts:

• Icing the BI Cake with User Experience
• It Just Has to Work
• Will the BI portal last?

Icing the BI Cake with User Experience

The true power of BI is the ability to present actionable information to decision makers.  All the data quality governance, ETL excellence, and dimensional analysis will mean nothing if the business can't intuitively interact with the information through their BI tools.  You must ice the cake with an exceptional User Experience to drive the most value from your BI investments.

 

A focus on User Experience is key to your BI program's success for the following reasons:

• Enables a faster "mean time to answer".  Reducing the number of clicks and searches makes your applications more satisfying and efficient to use.
• Consistency.  Once a user understands how to read one report or dashboard, they can apply the same methodology across all BI applications.
• Expose correlations.  Simply combining data on a visualization like a chart or a scatter plot can immediately show a correlation between 2 measures that are not as readily apparent as pure numbers.
• Guide your user through tried and tested analysis processes to expose the knowledge of power users to the larger user base.
• Simplify the experience of finding information by improving navigation structures.  Ensure your search capabilities are optimized to return the most relevant results.

In order to drive the most value from your user's experience you need to have a consistent approach across all the user touch points in your environment.  My recommendation is to designate someone to be accountable for User Experience across the board.  Depending on the size of your BI program this may be part of someone's role, a full person, or a small team.  Only with a centre of excellence can you drive consistent standards across all groups creating end user content.  This team would also serve as a consultant to projects to ensure that the reporting and visualizations are designed to be intuitive and useful.

You can have all the wonderful architecture and data quality you want, but without an effective User Experience your clients will not see the value of all your hard work and will be less likely to adopt your BI environment.  First impressions only happen once.

Related Posts:

• It Just Has to Work
• Cut to the Truth: Answer a Business Question

Cut to the Truth: Answer a Business Question

As the wealth of data available to consumers of Business Intelligence in your organization exponentially increases, so does the opportunity to expose all this data... Even when we shouldn't...

What?? Don't leverage any and all information to analyze every aspect of the situation? Bite your tongue!

When we have decision makers that need to make a call and move on to the next problem, they don't have the time (or the patience) to sort through endless reams of data to find the nugget or two that will help them make the decision. It is critical that we always ask the golden question, "What business question are we trying to answer?"

Once we have identified the end purpose of our analysis, we can then focus our energies on leveraging all this data to show the proper trend, scoring or visualization as our end result. Don't try to overcomplicate your analysis, just focus on the 80% value you can deliver with 20% of the effort. Your customers will love you for making their jobs easier, and your solutions will be less costly and easier to maintain.

Don't you love the 80/20 rule? Simplicity at it's best.

Keep Your KPIs Fresh

One thing that has caught my attention over the past couple of months is the emphasis on new financial metrics in this depressed market. Employment statistics used to be mentioned in passing, and now we breathlessly await the monthly numbers. Clearly the global recession is an entirely new environment, and investors would be wise to not rely on old metrics and approaches to guide them.

This made me think of how a core component of a good performance management system is keeping your metrics relevant to the current business environment they are attempting to measure. There is no such thing as permanent performance indicators. If your metrics don't change, then there is something wrong with your process. It is critical to keep your performance metrics focused on the current objectives and strategies of your business.

If your company is spending money differently, as all companies are doing in some way, then your performance indicators must change to reflect this. In these types of rapid change it is entirely possible that your core business strategy can shift significantly. It is essential that the keepers of corporate performance make it a continuous cycle to review and evaluate the suite of KPIs to ensure they are aligned to today's business reality.

This also speaks to the need for the IT organization to be able to rapidly respond to these changes in direction to provide the necessary data for the new KPIs. The best BI infrastructures are highly adaptable and responsive to change.

Step back and take a look at your metrics. Are they still relevant?

Dashboards by Example

I love this site! Nothing like looking at lots of sample dashboards!

http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/