I did a post a couple of months ago on what makes a successful BI project which includes the use of Microsoft Office Performance Point Server.  To summarise:

  • Business sponsorship form the board
  • Recognition of business need
  • Partnership between business users and the IT department
  • Culture of analysis
  • The right infrastructure.

Ralph Kimball has published this readiness checklist in his book The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit which has been on my bookshelf for nearly a decade so nothing new here, except that not many members of the audience at the recent Performance Point sessions of the TechNet road shows had come across this before.  The list fits together so you need to tick all of the boxes not just the ones at the top.

For example you might think that if the board want to implement a system or some change , whether manual or IT based then all is well.  However without popular support and that recognition of need then  you're be flogging a dead horse.  I have noticed that this practice is still in use in some commercial and public sector organisations so here is some helpful advice:

  1. Buying a stronger whip.
  2. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed.
  3. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the performance of the dead horse.
  4. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
  5. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
  6. Doing a study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
  7. Arranging visits to other countries to see how others ride dead horses.
  8. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries a lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to bottom line budget savings than other horses.
  9. Reclassifying the horse as “living, impaired”.
  10. Promoting the dead horse to a management position – the more senior the better.

I would add that using Performance Point to see how the horse is doing won't work either!