BICC Proposal AIMS v2b with comment from June meeting included

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• management
• managers

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• Publié par: Showyeg
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English

Extrait

              A Business Intelligence Competency Community Proposal for The University of Michigan   Prepared by AIMS – Advisors on Information Management Strategy                             Presented to: Laura Patterson Associate Vice President for Administration Information Systems, Leadership and Administrative-Lead, Michigan Administrative Information Services     June 2006

 

Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal       The following proposal is presented to the Associate Vice President for Administration Information Systems by the members of AIMS and the AIMS supported BI Competency Community subgroup:     AIMS Members:   • Barbara Ackley, Ross School of Business •   Paul Robinson, Office of the Registrar   •   David Baum, Law School •   Robin Sarris, College of LS&A •   Maia Bergman, Rackham Graduate Sch* •   Glenna Schweitzer, Provost Office •   Marcy Brighton, College of Engineering* •   Kent Seckinger, UMHS Human Resources •   Brent Dickman, Law School* •   Curt Smitka, OVP Research •   Bill Elger, Medical School •   Laurita Thomas, Human Resources •   Nathan Eriksen, School of Information Strategy and Planning •   Shane Fortune, Ross School of Business* Ex-Officio Members   •   Mike Kalasinski, School of Public Health •   Peggy Bennett, MAIS •   Ellen Meader, College of LS&A* •   John Gohsman, MAIS* •   Peggy Norgren, OVP Finance •   Deborah Mero, MAIS •   Vasilios Pliakas, Development Office*   *Members of the BI Competency Community Sub-Group. Additional members not represented above include: •   Candace Terhune, School of Social Work •   Gary Uptigrove, HR Records & Info Services •   Rob Wilke, College of LS&A  

AIMS: Virtual Business Intelligence Competency Community Proposal

 

Table of Contents

Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal                     Background.............................................................................................................................4  Summary of Internal and External Benchmarking Review .................................................... 5 Proposed BICC Structure ....................................................................................................... 6 BICC Participant Profile......................................................................................................... 7 Identifying BICC Participants & Incentives........................................................................... 7 BICC Meeting Patterns........................................................................................................... 8 Initial BICC Activities............................................................................................................ 9 Launching the BICC ............................................................................................................... 10 Managing the BICC................................................................................................................ 10 BICC: Its’ Coordination & Responsibilities with AIMS/MAIS............................................. 11 BICC and the Future of AIMS ............................................................................................... 11 BICC Resource Needs ............................................................................................................ 12 Measures of BICC .................................................................................................................. 12 In Summary ............................................................................................................................ 12 Appendix I (Overview of Sponsored Programs Integration Teams) ...................................... 13 Appendix II (CLC/HR Metrics Lessons Learned).................................................................. 15  

AIMS: Virtual Business Intelligence Competency Community Proposal

Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Background The strategic plan 1 of the Advisors on Information Management Strategy (AIMS) and MAIS Business Intelligence (BI) committee, recommended using the University’s decentralized management structure to enable BI to flourish. Therefore, units should be encouraged to pursue their own BI initiatives in addition to those being pursued by MAIS and the central offices. Furthermore, it recommends that the University should continue to take steps along an evolution toward information maturity by: 1.   exposing users to BI by pursuing BI initiatives in units that are ready and willing; 2.   publicizing the success and benefits of these projects to increase BI awareness in order to further drive demand for BI throughout campus; 3.   increasing collaboration across campus and strengthen the relationship of the schools and colleges with central offices with MAIS; and 4.   ensuring that U-M does not end up with a redundant or disparate portfolio of technologies   Realizing this creates the potential for an “application mess” on campus and allows for the duplication of effort, the plan stated that it would be important for all units on campus to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate on BI efforts. In response to this the plan called for the formation of a group to bridge the efforts of MAIS, central offices, and schools/colleges in developing BI as a core business process on campus. While the timing for a staffed BI group is not yet appropriate, it is still a critical objective to provide a collaboration and support mechanism for BI that will allow users to learn from each other and leverage the analytical, business process and methodology expertise that currently exist at the university. To this end we are proposing, with the support of AIMS and the sponsorship of the CFO and Provost, the creation of a virtual Business Intelligence Competency Community (BICC). The BICC’s initial focus would be the development of a tight network of people who are actively involved in BI that will help bridge the gap between schools/colleges, MAIS and central offices. The BICC will provide a forum for BI users to actively share their expertise and will also help to enable BI users on campus by: •   Working with communication groups to inform and advise them of BI activities and opportunities to promote BI awareness •   Collaborating with MAIS and BI users to establish a support and training network for BI users, •   Helping MAIS and Central Offices collect and share the University’s BI body of knowledge (best practices/metric standards/BI methodologies) •   Acting as an advocate for BI user needs.   The BICC will not be responsible for the creation of specific campus wide metrics, business processes, etc., but will, through the process of sharing experiences and discussing next step priorities, become a clearinghouse/knowledge base of BI activities across campus. Users participating in the BICC directly benefit by taking new ideas/processes back to their units and at the same time will be able to share their BI initiatives/ideas with a broader community. At the same time they will be aiding in the dissemination of BI projects and assisting in building a repository of BI knowledge/standards/methodologies that can be leveraged by all units in future initiatives. Through these interactions the BICC will become the center point in efforts to begin networking the islands of BI expertise across campus for the benefit of the broader community.

                                                  1 Published, May 2005 and available at: http://www.bi.umich.edu/startup/download/bi_stratplan_may2005.pdf AIMS: Virtual Business Intelligence Competency Community Proposal

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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Summary of Internal and External Benchmarking Review   Internal Review: Recognizing the complexities of establishing a BICC in an entrepreneurial and decentralized organization, we looked internally for other successful similar initiatives that had previously been undertaken at the University. An effort which has thrived since 2001 and has evolved along a similar track as BI appears to be moving is the Research Administrators Network (RAN). As a result of the dramatic growth in research volume, technological changes, and changes to the regulatory and compliance environment, many common research administration topics developed. The Vice Presidents for Research and Chief Financial Officer of the University charged a team -SPIT I (Sponsored Programs Implementation Team) 2 to provide feedback on current service levels, identify systematic problems with suggested solutions, and prioritize identified improvements. One of the results of this team’s recommendations was the continuing partnership between central and academic units, creating a standing advisory committee. SPIT III, now known as Sponsored Projects Advisory Team (SPA) tries to build a common understanding of the issues facing research administration, including discussing new issues and facilitate solutions, addressing specific problems as they arise, clarifying roles and responsibilities, managing communications, and evaluating solutions and subsequent policy and procedure changes.   All indications suggest that this initiative with its underlying educational component –RAIN (Research Administration Instructional Network) and other training opportunities has been tremendously successful affecting positive change and developing a self-sustaining network of research administrators able to leverage the knowledge of the organization in their respective units. (specific details of SPIT I, II & III are provided in appendix I)   External Review In addition to looking internally for efforts that have been successful, a limited survey regarding how external organizations have addressed similar BI challenges was conducted. The information collected further validated the importance of establishing a central resource of BI activists and business experts that the broader organization could leverage in unit/divisional level BI projects while maintaining an alignment with the broader organizations strategic BI Framework. Based on a survey conducted by Gartner, Inc. in 2005, BI initiatives were ranked the #1 priority by CIO’s globally across every region. 3  It is evident that organizations across multiple industries and around the world are prioritizing the development of their BI capabilities. After years of investing in infra-structure and data warehousing initiatives, organizations are seeking to leverage their information assets to improve the return on investment in enterprise wide systems and increase the agility of their organizations in an increasingly competitive and resource constrained market place.   At a recent Gartner, Inc. BI Conference (March ’06) the idea of BICC’s (either real or virtual—no FTEs) was woven into nearly every aspect of the discussion around the successful and sustainable implementation of BI regardless of the industry. An industry leading provider of BI tools and infra-structure indicated that standardized BI without implementing a BICC that embodies the best practices (business and technical) of the organization is destined to be a short-term solution that ends with higher costs, frustration for end users and decreased trust 4 . The BICC 5 is consistently referred to as a critical organizational tool and enabler to promote/diffuse/pervade/permeate/disseminate BI in an organization. Based on this internal and external review of organizational structures, we are making the following organizational recommendations for implementing a BICC at the University of Michigan.                                                   2 This situation does provide a potential parallel to the current ability to use our information assets to support management decisions. AIMS was created to identify how to leverage enterprise systems and data to realize a return on the University's investment in those systems: providing information for improved strategic decision-making; monitoring operational performance; and enhancing financial and operational control and in the context could be viewed as the equivalent of SPIT I. The proposed BICC could be viewed as the equivalent of SPIT II (the action team), the team charged with helping to move the university user community toward the adoption of BI best practices. 3 Gartner, Inc., Donald Feinberg “CIO’s View of BI” 4 “Implementing Business Intelligence Standards and Competency Centers”, Timo Elliot, Business Objects   5 BICC in this context is being used as a generic term. Different groups refer to the BICC by different names (e.g. BI center of excellence, BI Competency Group/Center, Advisors on Information Management Systems – Accenture, etc.). 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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Proposed BICC Organizational Structure Recognizing that the time commitment involved to support a BICC (even in advisory roles to central resources such as MAIS) can be significant and that the target participants are almost by definition already responsible for covering multiple unit duties, we are recommending that a three tiered participation structure be adopted. We believe that this structure will: •   Give time restricted BI activists/users an avenue for participation •   Allow more advanced BI units to share their accomplishments and participate in areas they specifically see providing direct benefit to them •   Enable broader communication channels (vis-à-vis more participants) into the university •   Provide additional opportunities for a larger cross-section of the community to participate •   Provide a feeder mechanism for the ongoing sustainability of the BICC   Tier I  Tier one of the BICC would allow users to participate in activities through existing BI email groups, Blogs and the BI Web site. These members would have the ability to keep up-to-date with BI activities on campus, share ideas and submit project proposals, but would not participate in regular meetings. This group may also be used as a pool to solicit volunteers for specific future initiatives or events. At this time the development of this tier is progressing positively with over two-hundred individuals indicating they want to be on the BI Special Interests email group, and with the recent launches of BI Blog and Website.   Tier II Tier II participation would initially be primarily by nomination from various groups on campus (AIMS, BAG, MAIS advisory groups, etc.), and limited to 30 - 50 people (this is an initial estimate; it could be higher depending on how active the typical member is and the number of self-nominations received). These users would be formally considered active members of the BICC and we would further emphasize the selectivity/importance of this group by providing them a title (BICC Associate, BICC Advisor, etc.) that they could refer to professionally. There would be optional activities for these people two or three times per month - a project update meeting, analysis sharing, and guest speakers. These participants would be expected to actively share what they are doing in the areas of BI, but would not be expected to make significant time commitments to “hard selling” BI, driving awareness,and coordinating activities. There would likely be opportunities for people to step forward and take lead roles in sub-groups pulled together to address specific issues .   Tier III Tier III participation would be 10-15 people that can make the commitment to coordinate the activities of tier I and II, work with MAIS and central offices on awareness and training, BI website design, tool reviews, and would be the first group MAIS turns to for BI project input. Tier III participants could use the title “BICC Consultant” (or another to be agreed upon) in their professional references.  We estimate that the initial time  commitments for this group would average 4-8 hours per month. It wouldn't matter if key schools said they didn't have time to help we would just need some schools to participate, not all.     The BICC will need to be dynamic and organic in its composition at all levels with membership that reflects the changing internal and external realities of the University. Members of Tier II & Tier III should be owners of issues that either have been solved already with BI, or need to be solved using BI in order for the BICC to be a conductor to increased agility. However, to minimize the disruption of membership changes in the early phases of a BICC and to give the group a chance to assess its objectives and build an internal body of knowledge, the initial Tier III group should be relatively fixed for the first 12 months as it works to establish itself within the University. An initial activity and perhaps a precursor to be selected for Tier III membership could be the requirement that the participant be able to prepare and present a case study discussing how their unit has approached, or is proposing to approach a business problem using BI. This would provide Tier I, II & III participants with immediate insight to other unit activities and contribute to the University’s body of BI knowledge. The initial Tier III group may be skewed towards the areas of the university that are taking a more proactive view of leveraging BI and see it as method to further support their current business processes or towards the areas with the larger user communities of data.

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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     BICC Participant Profile -- Tier II, III    Research on successful BICC’s suggests that the composition should be weighted strongly towards business experts with a broad organizational understanding and a breadth on BI skills (analytical, critical thinking, process management) supported by data experts (people who understand what’s available and what’s possible) and business technologists (see chart 1). Members should be those people that are passionate about BI, and have a strong desire to see it applied across the organization with a proven ability to innovate and lead. Additional critical criteria for BICC members that have been important to its success in other organizations are: •   Credibility within the University and IT •   Strong collaboration and communication skills •   Breadth of BI/Analytical skills rather than depth •   In-depth understanding of organizational business and data •   Respect and understanding for user needs/desires •   Ability to look broadly across borders at diverse applications and organizational processes •   Proven ability to foster user interest and adoption •   Ability to find opportunities that drive business value •   Innate personal interest in diverse emerging trends and technologies •   Proven experience in delivering new marketing or business initiatives •   Ability to uncover, evaluate and analyze the impact of disruptive forces   Gartner, Inc. research and case studies indicate that successful BICC’s have tapped into the Best and Brightest in an organization who are business experts and analysts first with IT skills being a secondary or tertiary attribute. These are people that understand key short-tem and long-term drivers of organizational and academic excellence. In addition they need to be active with respect to the following changes in the industry, looking out for changes and disruptions that may impact the organization.   Identifying BICC Participants & Incentives To identify Tier II & III prospects, we will be seeking nominations from AIMS and unit leadership based on the above criteria. From these nominations, we believe that we will be most successful in motivating voluntary participation and commitment and reinforcing the importance of the BICC with a personally addressed letter from the CFO and Provost that briefly outlines the importance BI and this group’s key role in aiding its adoption at the University.   In addition to Tier II & III volunteers, there should be representation from MAIS involved in various aspects of BI, central and academic units and look for faculty representation in support of academic analytics. It will be important that BICC members understand that they serve as representatives for their school, college, institute or central unit from both managerial and end-user perspectives.   As additional motivators for Tier II & III BICC participation and give people (and their respective management) the incentive to “step-up” to this role and make the additional time commitment outside of their day-to-day responsibilities, MAIS and the central offices should consider: •   providing priority training and one-on-one consulting to units represented on the BICC •   providing support/service to participants in helping them to document & transfer their skills/knowledge to others in their unit allowing them more time to work tactically and strategically with the BICC (at the same time the BICC gathers ongoing processes and methodologies). • emphasizing the professional networking opportunities       

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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Chart 1 (Gartner, Inc.)   BICC Tier II & III Meeting Patterns Tier III This group will initially need to meet on a bi-weekly basis to ramp up on the BI activities, initiatives and technologies across campus and to establish the initial agenda for Tier II activities and sharing opportunities. As priorities are established and Tier II - key sub-groups formed, the group will likely find that meeting bi-weekly as needed is sufficient to drive goals and provide the users with the support they need.     Tier II Tier II meetings would likely be coordinated by Tier III members initially. Tier II meetings would offer participants monthly opportunities to come together around specific topics/areas of discussion. For example we can envision providing a forum where those people are interested come together on a regular basis to: •   Share new analysis methods/strategies •   Hear about and share updates on ongoing campus BI projects/initiatives •   Listen to a guest speaker on a specific topic   Functionally/area specific forums could be setup to rotate each month to engage members that have limited interest in cross-functional or general BI discussions but are very interested in sharing/learning about activities specific to:   Financials •   Human Resources •   Student •   Advanced Dash boarding • •   Data Mining •   Research Administration •   Development •   Space, etc.   Applying a Faculty Collaboration Model to BI at the University is something we also evaluated that might hold promise. We looked at the processes used at the Law and Business Schools and would like to explore the following “brown bag” lunch models:   Featured speaker - topic or idea: featured speaker gets 5 - 10 minutes to present a topic (an idea) which is followed by 20 - 30 minutes of open discussion Featured speaker - presentation/demonstration: presenter provides a short overview document of the topic to be discussed/application to be demonstrated prior to the lunch, and then they get 30 minutes to present while people eat. This is followed by a question and answer session, which is intended to give both the audience and the presenter the opportunity to learn more and share new ideas.     As we gauge interest in these structures we may be able to solicit Tier II volunteers to drive specific forums and “brown-bags” leaving Tier III the responsibilityto coordinate the timing and locations, etc.. AIMS: Virtual Business Intelligence Competency Community Proposal 8  

Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Initial BICC Activities Through the process of participants sharing and learning from their BI experiences we believe that it will be important for the Tier III group in conjunction with MAIS and central offices to look at how it can transfer this knowledge to the broader campus. The Tier III group with MAIS centric resource support and in conjunction with willing Tier II participants should strongly consider initiating the following sub-groups to refine & develop the strategies and methods that need to get done to lay the non-technical foundation of successful BI at the University (bullet points highlight specific goals that might be included in a charge document):   1.   User awareness and training sub-group •   Answer the question, what is BI and why should I care (Wake up the  v u i s d e e r   s g )? u   i   dance to BI Web and Communication teams to promote  Become a   Become an •   Pro user of the information and communicate discoveries and innovations in BI. information activist •   Identify key questions that units can answer with existing    information. •   e A x d p v e i r s i e e   n M ce A  a I t S  t  i h n e     t U he n   i f v o e r r m si u t l y a   t s i u o g n g  o e f s   t a s    t B h I a   t t   r t a r i a n i i n n i g n   g p   l c a a n n     -- b P e  r t e h v e i   o “ u g s l   ue”  Understandin ’ g  “Wake-Up!”  ’ You don t that holds a BI network together. what  k y n o o u w     d   ont  know wh ’ at    you don t 2.   Methodologies, standards and definitions sub-group   know •   Inventory and build on a standard set of methodologies, definitions,   and processes to help BI users generate more consistent results and insights which results in better decisions. •   Capture lessons learned and integrate into the organizational memory. •   Identify logical groupings of metrics based on user demands and recommend dashboards that provide more targeted information for unit/organizational level decision support.   3.   Data warehouse completeness; a sub-group of experts, and advocates making sure the right data is available and users are familiar with it •   Clearly identifying what data is available for decision making. •   Work with MAIS and central offices to develop the processes to support rapid inclusion of new data (and business processes) as people adopt BI and start asking questions that need additional data support. •   Advocate when there is missing data and assessing solutions (does it make sense to add to a data warehouse, a data mart).   Work to develop clear expectations and processes for collecting data needed for decision support, • but that is not currently accessible/available and what the responsibilities/duties are from an infra- structure support perspective and a unit data collection/input perspective to be successful.   4.   Share experiences and plans •   Representatives share their plans and current experiences meeting management needs for business intelligence, including the specific management strategy, use of tools and data.

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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     Initial BICC Activities - Continued External research and conversations with organizations that have been through the creation of a BICC support this initial focus. In addition the lessons learned in the HR Metrics project and subsequent rollout further reinforces the importance of these areas (appendix II).   It is strongly recommended that before we launch BI across campus, we have an inventory of tools that users will be able to apply immediately (or at least in a very short period of time) to their operations. Lessons learned from initial HR Metrics efforts indicate that they didn’t get much traction in their discussions around KPIs/metrics until they had a tool to demonstrate. This experience is further validated by external organizations. In our discussions with one organization using Business Objects XIR2, it was explicitly indicated that the only reason they were successful was because they “took the time to build a set of dashboard examples, not to delineate how the analysis should be done, but rather to show users what was possible” 6 .   Launching the BICC We have an opportunity to time the launch of the BICC with the implementation of the University’s new BI tool suite Business Objects XIR2 (late Summer 2006). The initial rollout of the BICC can be low-key to: •   give it time to identify Tier III participants and partially identify Tier II members, •   allow it to become more fully informed about BOXIR2 and the BI environment, and •   work with MAIS to plan a BI event kick-off in the late Fall of 2006.   If we were to move forward with a Fall 2006 BI event this would be an ideal place to formally announce the BICC as a mechanism to sustain the excitement generated at the event. Event participants could be informed that there is a support mechanism in place to help them move forward with BI and there may be potential opportunities for Tier II membership.   Managing the BICC The success of the BICC will in large part lie with the commitment and passion of its members to bring forward new ideas, the ability of participants to learn from their colleagues’ experiences, the transfer of this knowledge to the broader university community and the leadership of the group. A few of the responsibilities that the Tier III BICC lead will need to manage are: •   setting the agenda to ensure that momentum around BI is sustained, •   working with the leadership of the University and resource-providing organizations (e.g. MAIS, central offices, etc.), and •   coordinating and communicating with key groups and committees on campus.   The above list is not comprehensive, but highlights the time commitment a Lead will need to drive an organizational wide BICC effort. In addition to the time commitment a few of the characteristics the Lead should have include: •   A passion for and broad understanding of BI/analytical skills, •   A diversity of perspectives on the university, •   Strong communication and collaboration skills, and •   Credibility within the university and IT.  

                                                  6 Discussions with Audi’s Director of Business Intelligence

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Advisors on Information Management Strategy   BI Competency Community Proposal     BICC: Its’ Coordination & Responsibilities with AIMS/MAIS At this time there are initiatives underway that could fall under one of the initial BICC focus areas previously identified. To fully leverage the good work that has been started, we believe that the BICC should work closely with MAIS to ensure the appropriate resources are closely involved with its activities. Groups that MAIS currently has underway that should be working closely with a BICC include: •   BI Web Team •   BI Events Team •   BI Applications - Business Objects Web Reporting, Dash boarding, etc. • Business Objects User Group     In many cases it is likely that there will be at least one member on the BICC that is already participating in one or more of these groups, making the connections easier to facilitate. MAIS should continue to facilitate these groups where it is currently doing so under the guidance and of the BICC.   In addition to the above groups AIMS has identified several potential BI projects that we may want to initially bring BICC participants up-to-speed on and evaluate if there are any opportunities for the BICC to help enable these initiatives, offer support, or at a minimum generate awareness that they are underway. Some of these include: •   Risk Assessment/Financial Controls •   HR Metrics •   “Push” Communication Technology •   Development’s Campaign Metrics   There are also significant additional BI-like initiatives underway around Student Relationship Management and Online Development Fundraising. Each has a well developed constituency of supporters that we should engage in the BICC to ensure the participants and campus are able to learn from these important programs as they work through organizational impact and tool issues as the initiatives move from proposals to deployments. There are inevitability other important initiatives underway that have yet to “bubble-up” to AIMS or MAIS, but as the BICC becomes established and is seen as an enabler/trusted advisor, a measure of its success will be the owners of these initiatives seeking out BICC members to collaborate on their efforts.   BICC and the Future of AIMS The establishment of a BICC is a natural milestone in the maturation of BI at the University of Michigan. AIMS has established a direction for BI on campus and the BICC will further establish and operationalize BI over time. As the BICC becomes more established we can foresee it in conjunction with MAIS taking on more of AIMS’s operational components of identifying, promoting and supporting BI across the organization (alleviating AIMS from this responsibility). AIMS in this scenario would move into a strategic advisory role providing input to MAIS, central offices and the BICC on leadership priorities and it would likely shift both its member composition (towards strategic roles) and its meeting frequency (likely to a quarterly basis or as needed). The BICC in this case becomes AIMS operational arm supported and advocated for by AIMS, the CFO and Provost and will bring new project ideas forward for AIMS strategic review and prioritization.  

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