Business Intelligence - Implementation Challenge

Gartner has done a study about Top Strategic Technology in every year, and for the 2009 and 2010, Business Intelligence has become one of that list. If you want to know, whether you have used this technology in your work or company then this discussion would be answered your question.

Business Intelligence is a generic name which in its implementation and use can be in many forms. Wikipedia defined it as to skills, technologies, applications and practices used to help a business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. It is aimed to help business decision making process more accurate as it has some valid data to support it.

While everyone would like be able to do so, however it its real implementation that is not easy case. Several key challenges that I experienced are :

• The project is treated as technology implementation. The project must have a strong business analyst or data analyst that knows exactly the requirements
• Users have not been discipline from the start in providing the necessary data to make decision. In this case the application will not be able to do anything
• Scope is not defined well and application comes as a tool. This often create a situation where the output is not what the users are expected
• Technology issues such as sizing capacity and the selection of the tools are also need to be prepared carefully

In this discussion - you might want to know what is there in the market for you to used, and Gartner clasification of Business Intelligence Platform could be usefull.

Challenge IT Project in Small Medium Enterprise

What would be the challenge in implementing a project in Small Medium Enterprise (SME) ? Some critical success factors in implementing a project are User / Management Support, Project Scope, Infrastructure to support the project, Business/Process Understanding of the industry, Change Management, adequate resources and Personnel Leadership by Project Management. In a Small Medium Enteprise where many of these factors often can't be provided, implementing an IT Project can be a tough job. It is often that a system integrator wants to implement a project in SME environment has taken this factor too easy which then put the project into a difficult situation.

The challenge can comes in every factors which not because the SME does not want to support the project however it is merely the capacity is not there. In that situation, a system integrator must be able to calculate the risk and find a chance to educate the SME before the project is started. It is must be overlooked because the customer size is relatively small then the project could be easier. This could be trapped that a new project manager will face.

In that situation some key suggestion including :

• Strong Project Management Leadership on both side
• Drive by the higher management can help a lot
• Find an informal leader to be the advisor of the project
• Implementing a good change management approach is important

While it looks quite familiar in many project however in SME those aspect can be even critical, because those are only the basic - minimal requirements before a project can start.

Tools for Project Management

Managing multiple project can be very not effective if you are not supported by the right tool. Focus and prioritation of a project manager must be on the project and must not on the tool, however without the right tool you are not possible to direct your projects into the right point.

There are a lot of tools in the market now, which is offered either by SAAS model and the normal installation model. However whatever tools that you are selected it must be able to do several key tasks i.e. Project Registration, Project Portfolio and prioritation, Resource Registration, Resource Time Sheet, Project Cost and Resource Tracking, Project Plan Development.

Several solution that you can choose in the SAAS model that worth to look at is Innotas, as well as @task This project management tools is very informative as well as it has moved also to application portfolio management which overall give a complete set of IT governance tools. While for the full blown Enterprise Project Management, the recent Microsoft Enterprise Project Management is a strong strong solution that you can evaluate. This tool has been much improved from its previous version and be able to compare with Primavera Solution who has been acquired by Oracle

If you prefer to look for more SAAS type of solution, this link would be able to help you. This site give a list for all SAAS solution that you can possibly have.