Marketing and Expectation Management

At the same time you are project-focused on building the second and subsequent iterations, you need to be outwardly focused on the connections between the data warehouse and the rest of the organization. Marketing is probably the wrong term to use for this section because Marketing has a bad reputation with most technical folksalthough not as bad as its evil twin, Sales. (Just kidding, some of our best friends are in Sales.) It may be more appealing to view the activities in this section as educational efforts. But call it what you willin this what have you done for me lately world, you must actively and constantly market the BI system.

From an educational perspective, your goal is to make sure everyone knows what they need to know about the BI system. Management needs to know how their investment is going. Specifically, they need to know how it is being used to generate value for the organization. It also helps them to see how it is being used in different parts of the company. Analysts and other knowledge workers need to know how they can use the DW/BI system more effectively and why its important to them. The IT organization also needs to know whats going on with the DW/BI system. You need close working relationships with the source system managers on the input side of the data warehouse, and with other information-driven systems on the output side of the data warehouse. Fortunately, you have some quantitative and qualitative tools to help educate all these groups. In this section, we start out with an assessment of whom the major stakeholders in the DW/BI system are, and then look at the communication and education tools available to help keep them informed.

The Stakeholders

A map or list of the various stakeholders in the BI system helps ensure you consider the needs of all interested parties. A big challenge for the BI system manager is that everyone is a potential stakeholder, and we mean everyone. In fact, there is no reason the reach of the BI system cant extend beyond the organizational boundaries because there is often significant value to be found in providing information to your customers and suppliers. A good place to start for this list of stakeholders is the communications plan you created as part of the initial project plan. In a way, this section is about creating the ongoing communications plan. Table 16.1 lists the major stakeholders in the DW/BI system along with some of the tools or techniques you can use to keep them informed and engaged.

Table 16.1: BI System Stakeholders and Engagement Tools

STAKEHOLDERS	TOOLS
Senior management	Usage Reports ; Status Notes; User Forums; Senior Staff meetings; BI Steering Committee; BI Web Site
Business community	Usage Reports; Support; Training; Newsletter; User Forums; User surveys; BI Web Site
Senior IT management	Regular briefings; User Forums
Transaction systems	DW/BI knowledge transfer; New product design teams ; Master data projects; Scoring feeds
Information-driven systems	Requirements gathering; Data feeds; Support
External data sources	Regular contact; Status reports including failure rates
External users	Requirements gathering; User surveys

We have already discussed many of these techniques in earlier chapters. The rest of this chapter concentrates on the engagement techniques that have not been presented before. Because the DW/BI system is all about quantitative measures, well start with how to use quantitative techniques as an engagement tool.

Quantitative Techniques

The same systems you use to monitor queries and performance can also give you the data you need to show basic usage across the organization. Use your reporting tools against the usage monitoring system you set up in Chapter 15 to show how usage is changing over time. The example report in Figure 16.2 shows a trend of increasing usage, both in terms of the number of active users and in the average number of queries per user.

Figure 16.2: An example data warehouse usage report

This is definitely the kind of report youd like to show to senior management. Obviously, if the usage trends are decreasing , you might not be so eager to share the report, but youd better figure out why. Other usage reports might include:

• Share of query activity by department (a sorted bar chart)

• Queries by source (automated versus user created)

• Query counts by business process data model (from the fact table)

You should publish reports on the BI portal that show usage at lower levels as well, like the one in Figure 16.3. A department-level BI analyst can view these reports to see whos using the system in their group and who might need help. Publishing these reports is also an indirect way of informing people about the fact that you monitor their usage. After all, the DW/BI system is an organizational asset and you need to manage it responsibly.

Figure 16.3: An example departmental and user level usage report

An interesting side benefit of publishing usage statistics weve seen in some companies is that it sparks the competitive side of people. Seeing that others are using the system can actually motivate people to begin using it themselves .

Qualitative Techniques

While usage statistics are interesting, they show only activity, not business value. Simple query counts tell you nothing about the content or business impact of those queries. Unfortunately, theres no good way of automatically capturing the value of each analysis in the warehouse. You still have to get this information the old-fashioned way, by talking to people. Essentially, someone on the DW/BI system team has to go out into the user community on a regular basis and ask people to describe what they are doing, assess the business impact it has had, and document it.

THE COMPETITIVE SPIRIT

The manager of a BI system project invited us to attend the quarterly meeting of the regional VPs of a major consumer finance organization. On the way to the meeting we picked up a report of users ranked by their usage that he had just printed for us to see. It was not on the agenda, but it happened to be on top of our stack as we sat down at the table. These were competitive folks in a competitive industry. One of the VPs happened to see the report and pulled it off the stack to examine it. The VP next to him leaned over to see, and within 60 seconds, they were all leaning across the table looking at the report.

One of them observed in a pleased tone that his region was really using the BI system and getting good information from it. At that point, the VP whose region was clearly not using the system turned to the BI system manager and began insisting on getting training scheduled for his region as soon as possible. This was for a region in which the BI system manager had not been able to generate any interest for the prior year. Sometimes a little competition can be a strong motivator.

 

Most of the time, the impact isnt all that stunning. People do useful things that make a big difference in their lives, but its not the multi-million dollar hit. For example, you may find a financial analyst who has built several queries to gather baseline data for the annual forecasting process. Gathering this info used to take her several days and now it only takes a few minutes. This is good, but not great.

STEALTH MARKETING

One of our Kimball Group associates experienced the power of simple education at a client where the BI system project manager captured a whole set of high-value stories. Every time someone told her one of these great stories she asked them (and hounded them) to write it up and guesstimate the financial impact on the business in an email memo to her. She then printed the stories, placed them in plastic sleeves and put them in a three-ring binder loudly labeled DW Success Stories , and strategically placed it on her desk where everyone could see it. Ultimately, she had well over $100 million of business value documented. People would stop by all the time and page through it. Whenever the BI team went to management for more funding or resources, the binder was strategically placed on the conference room table before the meetings. Ultimately, she parlayed this into several promotions and finally into a senior role in the brand marketing area.

 

Every so often, you will find someone who has done something that has had a significant impact. They may have done a study that helped them tune marketing promotions in a way that doubled response rates and increased revenue by $700,000. Or, they may have identified a pattern of calls in the customer care data that led to a simple change in the documentation and reduced the call volume by 13 percent (at $6/call, thats over $100,000 per year for a company that takes 500 calls per day). Or they may have analyzed the donor database in a small non-profit organization and identified donors who had dropped out. A special program to reconnect with these people yielded a 63 percent response rate and close to $200,000. You get the idea.

Educating the Business: the User Forum

Finding these high-impact examples is a lot of work. One technique weve used, called the User Forum is an effective way to identify and leverage these qualitative examples of value. The User Forum is a DW/BI event held with the business community. Schedule these on a regular basis: about every six months or so. The meeting is usually 90 minutes and has the same basic agenda every time. Try to schedule the meeting around your main business sponsor, who kicks off the meeting with a short speech about how important the data warehouse is to the organizations success. The first item on the agenda is a brief presentation from the BI team about the current state of the warehouse and your short term plans. The bulk of the meeting is dedicated to two presentations from analysts who used the BI system to generate significant value for the organization. They talk about what they did, how they did it, and what kind of impact it had.

Senior management likes this because they see the impact. Often the head of one department will see what another department has done and realize her group is missing an opportunity. Middle management and analysts like the presentations because they include enough detail so people can see exactly how the analysis was accomplished. They learn new techniques and approaches to the analytical process. Remember the example of the customer care rep who discovered that one particular model of a particular product by a particular manufacturer generated a much higher call rate than average? He worked with the design engineers to pinpoint the problem as a manufacturing defect. This ultimately saved the company several hundred thousand dollars in customer care costs. (It also made the manufacturer a bit unhappy .) This is a great story to present at a User Forum.

In this example, senior management likes the value and other analysts learn from the particular techniques used to solve the problem. Everyone wins! Well, maybe not the manufacturer.

None of this happens by accident . Carefully plan the meeting over the six months leading up to it. Find good presentation candidates with high business value by going around and talking to all your users on a regular basis. Once you find one, work with the user to create a clear, compelling presentation with lots of good screen captures and a summary page that shows the dollar impact of the analysis. Rehearse the presentation with them, especially if they are not experienced presenters. This also helps you get the timing down. You dont want your audience to miss the punch line because you went over your time limit. Contact key attendees to make sure they are going to make it to the meeting. If the CEO or VP of Marketing cant make it, consider rescheduling if she is the sponsor and you want her support or if you think she can learn something by being at the meeting.

Dont be too proud to employ blatant marketing techniques to promote the meeting. The basics almost go without saying: Food and drink are a must. (We found that trays of Krispy Kreme donuts were a big hit.) Consider offering marketing swag as prizes. Since most BI teams are friendly with the marketing group, see if theyll let you raid their goodies closet.

See what we mean when we say youve got to market the BI system actively and constantly?

Educating the Senior Staff

Your top educational priority in the long term should be to continuously and consistently inform senior management about what the DW/BI system is, why its important, and what it takes to make it happen. The marketing efforts we just described help achieve this priority, but obviously, the greater your access to senior management, the easier this education process will be. This is where the organizational placement of the DW/BI team can have a big influence. Ideally, the head of the team reports to senior management and is considered part of the senior management team. The rationale is that any decisions involving new programs, directions, and initiatives should be made with as much information as possible. Often, senior management will want to explore an idea to see if it is viable before launching any major new initiative. Having a direct line to the DW/BI team can help senior management quickly triage those ideas that should be abandoned and those that should be developed further.

Once an idea begins to gain traction, its development must be accompanied by the appropriate measurement and analytical systems. All too often weve seen a major new initiative taken on by senior management with no means to measure its impact or value. If the data is not collected, you cant analyze it. Unfortunately, having the DW/BI team report to the CEO is a politically difficult structure to create. The CIO and other C-level executives could be threatened by it.

Involving the BI team leader (and potentially the whole BI team) in directly supporting senior management decision making requires a high level of trust and discretion. Suppose, for example, management wants the BI team to assess the impact of potential layoffs as part of a scenario planning process. It would not be good if the BI team lets it slip that management is planning for layoffs.

Bottom line: however you make it happen, you need to make sure someone on the BI team is involved with senior management and understands where the business is headed so you can be prepared to support it.

Working with Steering Committees

If its not politically possible for the BI team lead to be part of Senior Staff, another way to get the information you need is to establish an ongoing business steering committee for the BI system. If you used a steering committee as part of the guidance process for the initial phase of the BI system, you have two choices. If the steering committee process and participants worked well, you can simply continue the steering committee in this new advisory role. If it didnt work so well, usually because of specific personalities, you can declare the original steering committee a success and disband it. Then, you can start up the BI system Guidance Council and bring in the people whom you know will be able to work together and give you the information you need. Remember, naming is a big part of the marketing process.

You may also have a different kind of business user steering committee made up of analysts and power users that help prioritize lower level tasks for the BI system. Remembering the importance of naming, you might call this group the BI Working Group.

Business Planning

Few organizations have the foresight to think through the entire lifespan of a new business initiative during the planning stage. Once the decision is made to do something, like launch a new product or line of business, all the focus is on getting it done. Unfortunately, done usually means only deliveredit doesnt include the ongoing measurement and assessment efforts. The BI team is typically handed the task of taking whatever useful data is collected from the new system (if any) and somehow integrating it into the rest of the DW/BI system.

Involve the DW/BI team in strategic and tactical planning for new products and systems. The design phase of every new product or system must include considerations for what needs to be measured, how the data will be collected, and how data quality will be maintained . The DW/BI team needs to be involved anywhere new ideas are made real. Often this is in new product planning or business development, but it could be a new sales program or customer service efforts. Your goal is to make sure measurement systems are built into the plan so there are no surprises when it comes time to report on the results.

Weve seen this over and over. We worked with a publishing organization that was caught up in their industrys rush to the Internet. In an effort to get there quickly, they developed a whole range of stand-alone marketing and promotion systems, like free trials, invite-a-friend, and email lists to receive the table of contents for a periodical. While the initial value of these efforts was positive, the organizations ability to analyze them and understand their long-term impact was practically zero because the systems had not been built with this in mind. There was no single ID for a customer or prospect, so it was impossible to do a cross-system comparison without first doing complex and costly name and address matching. Even within individual systems, analysis was difficult because the business rules and codes and descriptions were not standardized. Users had to learn the idiosyncrasies of each system before they could successfully query it. It gets worse , but you get the idea.

The main role of the BI team in this product/system planning process is to get the business folks and the developers thinking about what data they will need the system to capture and how they will use the data once the system is in production. You need to encourage them to think about a whole range of issues, including the following:

• Using standard codes and descriptions in the source system.

• Using the existing, single source for production keys for shared entities like customer or product. If there isnt a single source, the BI team should push for the creation of one, as we discuss in the section on master data in this chapter.

• Enforcing data quality during data collection. Avoid free-form entry, make important fields mandatory, and provide appropriate defaults, pick lists, auto-lookups, and in-line validation to improve data quality.

• Capture related information whenever possibleif an account transaction occurs, capture the associated household key if possible.

The DW/BI team can help make it as easy as possible for transaction systems to supply data. In a rapidly evolving systems environment, with lots of custom development, it may make sense to build a general-purpose transaction logging system. This would allow developers to write transaction events out to a standard API. The resulting logs would be in a standard format, potentially XML tagged, that would be easily parsed by the ETL programs. Adding new systems is simply a matter of assigning the appropriate event types and identifying the data that needs to be captured.