Planning for business intelligence adoption - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 52

change, training people on new skills, tools and processes, and gathering feedback for future
improvements. A written adoption plan provides the following key benefits:

It makes you think about how to accomplish self-service goals.

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It gives you something to share with others so that they can share your vision.

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It involves other people so that they can be part of the process of change.

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Talk to the users! The adoption plan should be based on an understanding of what success looks
like to the group you are working with, what users will do with the results, and how they can take
action from what you build. Start from user needs and work backward to provide tools that support
those needs. Even when users cannot specify in advance what they really want, it is critical to involve
them early and often, as BI tools are considered. Prototypes or proof-of-concepts that use data with
which the users are familiar helps them gain confidence in your ability to deliver a solution and the
tools they will be using. Remember that users can't always define what they want, but they know it
when they see it.

Ask users how they gathered information before they had access to current reports and how
they currently arrive at decisions. If you give users the ability to set parameters for analytics model-
ing, determine the default values to set and confirm that they know when and how to change the
parameters to other values. Users can help identify early wins that you or the designer might not have
thought of and might provide useful introductions to other potential users and their communities. A
user who feels a sense of ownership in report design can become an advocate for the technology and
help introduce the technology to a wider audience.

An analytics interface can be visually appealing. However, if the information it conveys doesn't
stimulate action, it's not likely to be very effective for improving business operations. A good inter-
face provides sufficient context to let business users know when action might be required and what
action to take.

Often BI developers ask, “What do you want to measure?” And many times business users respond,
“I don't know.” A good place to start is to find out what business users currently measure to know
when a problem has occurred or is about to occur. Then, demonstrate how the collection of informa-
tion can be automated to reduce the time required to put together a report. Show them that by using
Power View in SharePoint, they can easily export information for use in PowerPoint presentations.

Note Susan Hanley is an excellent resource for best practices related to user adoption
and metrics showing the value of a SharePoint deployment. You can download articles
and white papers on these topics from her website at http://www.susanhanley.com/
white-papers.htm .