This shows how important it is to know why you want to make better decisions, how behaviours will change, who will make those decisions and how insights will be translated to action. 

Perhaps most important, the project must bridge the gap between IT and line of business users. When this is achieved you can begin to enjoy the substantial returns on investment  that Intel gained.

Analytics are not just for data scientists and analysts' work groups. It's for all personas and use cases across an organisation . Meaning that operational people are as important as BI Analysts. When they work together the results can be outstanding.

This is where self-service analytics has such an important role to play as long as it on a secure and scalable BI Platform. That way IT can ensure the right information gets to the right people and not the other way round.

It also lets operational users experiment in a safe and controllable manner so that the final result is relevant to all users across an enterprise.

As the Intel Initiative shows, any analytics project starts with a plan, but experimentation and iteration make the plan a dynamic one and not a white elephant.