IU BI Task Force Workshop & Planning Session
Component: Vision
Section:
What Is It, User Types & Needs
Location:
Time:
To be determined
To be determined
Introduction:
A major goal of the IU BI Roadmap is to describe to our executives, leadership and university
community as a whole what we mean by Business Intelligence in the context of deployment at Indiana
University. Over time we will be asking for their support & sponsorship as well as the human & financial
resources needed for deployment. For them to justify the investment in time & resources we need to describe
what BI at IU ‘looks like’ and clearly articulate the benefits. We do have some documentation in hand to use as
a starting point. In general the objective for this session is to determine what the content should be and how
to get from where we are to a finished document to be included in the IU BI Roadmap.
What follows is a starting point for describing the information environment we envision ourselves
working towards. There can be confusion between what it is we are striving for and how we will accomplish
this - the line is often blurred. What we are focusing on in this workshop is describing the destination, not how
to get there.
Describing the Landscape:
Information Consumers
 Improving lines of communication by bringing together useful information to pursue our collective
goals and objectives effectively
 Individuals and groups have the capacity to use the data and tools to make informed operational,
tactical and strategic decisions in pursuit of goals and objectives
Information
 Availability of relevant, timely, accurate, well-defined and structured data
 Data that is aligned with unit and organizational goals and objectives
 Focus attention on worthwhile issues and information most relevant to issues and problems
 Information is aligned with individual goals and business objectives
 Information is shared through multiple collaborative methods and channels
 Users are well informed based on the information they receive from a variety of systems and tools
 Information is agile or rapidly assembled and pushed to the right people at the right time to make
business decisions
Vision: What Is It, User Types & Needs
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Delivery
 State-of-the-art tools for manipulating the data into useful forms and formats for delivery
 Tools that are intuitive and relatively simple to use
 Information delivered via a method which best suits the needs of the individual consumer
Data




Reduced amount of time and attention devoted to reproducing information systems locally
Establish a “new order” of collaboration and communication across the University by breaking down
the silos of information
Unit and institutional goals & objectives integrated within the information environment
The source, logic and meaning of data (metadata) is clearly understood, documented & widely
available
Session Objectives:
Given the amount of work which may be required to develop a finished document and the time
available in this session the primary objective is to come up with a detailed plan for how the document will be
developed. When discussing timelines assume the components of the Roadmap need to be completed by
September 25th.
Specific deliverables for this session include:
 A description of the sections, elements, or topics that should be addressed in the document
 A description of what the messages are that we want to convey
 How the document should be organized
 How the existing information will be incorporated
 What additional information will be required
 How will the additional information be obtained
 What specific tasks will need to be performed
 What is the timeline for completion of the document
 Should we have a larger version with a subset going to the roadmap
 Any other suggestions or ideas you have related to this deliverable or project in general
Vision: What Is It, User Types & Needs
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IU BI Task Force Workshop & Planning Session
Component: Vision
Section:
What Is It, User Types & Needs
Introduction
In tandem with ‘what is it’ comes the issue of ‘who’ will benefit and what are their ‘needs’. Through
the BITF discussions so far a focus on the associate dean level has been suggested. The Associate dean level
represents those with key operational decision making roles as well as those who would be information
providers to key executives making strategic decisions for the unit and the campus. Discussions also have led
to the issue of ‘operations’ and in general, the consensus has been that the BI initiative will not target
operational needs. Benefits to operations due to the BI efforts would be tangential to the BI focus. For the
purposes of this BI discussion, four categories of data users are presented to help define more clearly the
users and the user needs.
Requesting
data
Providing data
Developers
Developers
>
<
Analysts
Analysts
>
<
Operational Decision Makers
Operational Decision Makers
>
<
Strategic Decision Makers
Strategic Decision Makers
Highlighted above are Analysts and Operational Decision Makers as these have been suggested as
targeted users for the BI initiative. Requests for information may flow from right to left, so for example
Strategic Decision Makers would ask Operational Decision Maker for information that they needed. If the
Operational Decision Maker had the information, the request would be satisfied otherwise, the request would
be passed to the next person on the request data food chain. And then conversely, providing data flows in
the opposite direction.
The data needs for each of these data users are quite varied.
1. Developers have access to the data structures and operational data sources and are highly
technical and flexible with a suite of tools.
2. Analysts work closely with Developers and are proficient with many tools but are less
sophisticated technically. Analysts have solid functional knowledge and provide technical
specifications for transformations of data.
3. Operational Decision Makers (directors, associate deans, if you will) have solid operational
expertise, knowledge of a bigger picture including current initiative and operations that impact
the data.
4. Strategic Decision Makers (executives, if you will) may have regular data needs for basic
information but also data needs for new initiatives or external demands. When data is not
readily available, the Operational Decision Maker (director) will receive the request for
information.
Vision: What Is It, User Types & Needs
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So what then are the user needs at each of these levels? The diagram below represents some ideas
but herein is where our discussion starts (who are the users and what are their needs).
USERS
NEEDS
Expected Data
Needs
Expected
Data/Functional
Expertise
Expected
Operational
Expertise
Interaction with
BI
Developers
Analysts
Operational Decision Makers
Strategic Decision Makers
Original
Transformed
Summarized
High level summaries
Some
Very High
High
Little
Some
High
Very High
Little
Original data
sources and
build BI
deliverables
Request BI
deliverables
based on user
need Drill-down
and pre-defined
reports
Dashboards/pre-defined reports
Request dashboards and
predefined reports
Dashboards
The data needs at each user level appear require higher levels of transformation as you move across
the right , starting with the Developers using the original (ODS) data sources moving to high level summaries
for Strategic Decision Makers. Who then would need to be involved in providing these levels of
transformations given the functional and operational expertise? Again, the columns of Analyst and Operation
Decision Makers in the middle of the data food chain are impacted and may need to serve key roles
throughout the implementation.
Questions to start the discussion:








How can we identify the users and the user needs?
Where can BI offer the most support?
What are the information providers needs?
Who needs to be involved in the BI planning?
Who needs to be involved in the BI user needs assessment?
How can we solicit their (users) engagement?
What should the information request process look like?
What is needed to clearly articulate Users and Needs for this BI initiative? And what courses of action
would be helpful toward that end?
Vision: What Is It, User Types & Needs
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IU BI Task Force Workshop & Planning Session
Component: Vision
Section:
What Is It, User Types & Needs
Background Information
‘Layers’ of users and their ‘distance’ from the core data:
Excerpt from the IBM Assessment:
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How information is and can be organized to support different types of users:
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