Tales from the front line- in this case First Niagara Financial Group a bank based in Buffalo NY. One of there key points Greg Steffine makes is that too many BI teams & organisations over-complicate BI projects. They try to do too much with the result the project is delayed, participants lose interest and focus and the project fails.

I see this in many ISVs that decide to embed analytics in their applications. They dream up too much functionality without concentrating on what is important for the business user. The business user and the organisation shun the project which is doomed to failure.

Greg quotes Peter Drucker " Culture eats strategy for breakfast" noting that effective BI means change and change needs management and focus.

Beter to focus on the important and deploy faster with success than build complexity and unimportant functionality with delay.

Great lesson for all BI practitioners.