Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App

Secrets to making BI a killer app would be better worded "Secrets for a successful BI initiative" (though that is far less interesting). Howson concentrates on the practical aspects of building demand for BI, working through the politics/sponsorship, and team organization. Most of the information was very high level and though reinforced with real world examples provided little in the way of practical and actionable examples.

If you are new to BI management and looking for a project overview, I'd recommend the book. If you are looking details, technical examples, detailed case studies and steps of MAKING a killer BI app, not just describing the project, development and business buy-in process, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Of worthy note is the authors frequent recommendation of involving business users early and often, securing a strong sponsor, speaking business-speak, short iteration deployments and making sure the tool fits the job.

Excellent book defining BI best practices, how BI measures processes, BI for process improvement, defining what BI is, how to set up a BI strategy with real-life case studies.

I cannot tell you how many times I have referred to this book - it is dog-eared, post-it noted, and referred to many times in my daily life of working in Business Intelligence.

Cindi Howson explains what BI is, what agile is, what's worked well, what hasn't worked well, and there's a survey at the back of the book that I am anxious to use. For example, I have heard the term "agile BI" several times at trade shows but I never really understood it until I read this book.

This book is a must-read for those working in BI, managing BI, or those who need to strategize based on BI results. It is a fantastic book!

Cindi Howson's book is timely, relevant, insightful, thought provoking, and actionable. She constructively addresses the Yin and Yang perspecitives of IT Professionals vs. their Business User communities, and the fertile common ground where their successful Business Intelligence initiatives and value resides; providing current reference cases generated from her market surveys and company interviews.

Cindi Howson has impressed me as a thoughtful and knowledgeable professional who has contributed greatly to the BI field by living in the trenches, digging into the details, and teaching others about her experiences.

It is hard to find a comprehensive book on BI that is written without an impenetrable cloud of technical concepts. Ten years ago, successful BI depended on the expert execution of those technical concepts. However, BI has matured, increasing the importance of nontechnical factors for successful BI.

This book tracks this trend by clarifying the current success factors for successful BI projects. Oldies and goodies are covered, such as the necessity of executive support, data quality, and business-IT partnership. However, the real contribution lies in highlighting some of the new success factors, such as:

- Measuring Success: If you can not measure BI, you will not be successful. The book suggests numerous ways to measuring your BI effort.

- Role of Luck, Opportunity, Frustration and Threat: We hate to admit it, but BI projects are often successful (or not) for reasons beyond our control or even our imagination. Get over it! The book suggests ways of maximizing your success by making you aware of this dynamic.

- Agile Development: Do not build BI systems in the old traditional way. We all know this. But do we know a good alternative? The book outlines the Agile Manifesto to deliver early and continuous versions, embrace requirements changes, intensify person interactions, etc.

- Organizational Culture: Experienced BI professionals realize that some company cultures are so messed up that there is no way to have a successful BI project. Sad but true! This book suggests the essential cultural characteristics based on the research of Jim Collins.

I highly recommend this book to both BI professionals who have some experience and business executives who are new to BI. The old timers can refocus and sync with the new trends. And, the executives can focus on the real business issues, avoiding paralysis over technical details.