BI Business Requirements: When Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Sometimes we find clients who overestimate their need for analytics. Often, IT is focused on using BI to analyze a problem exhaustively, when sometimes exhaustive analysis just isn’t necessary. Sometimes our analytics requirements just aren’t that sophisticated.

Twenty years ago, WalMart knew when it needed to pull a product from the shelf. This didn’t require advanced analytics to drill down on the category, affinities, the seasonality, or the purchaser. It was simple: if the product didn’t sell after six days, free up the shelf space and move on. After all, there were other products to sell.

Why does this matter? Because we get so wrapped up in new, more sophisticated technologies that we forget about our requirements. Sometimes we just need to know what the problem and resulting action is. We don’t necessarily need to know the “why” every time. Often, all business users want is the information that’s good enough to support the decision they need to make.

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Sometimes we find clients who overestimate their need for analytics. Often, IT is focused on using BI to analyze a problem exhaustively, when sometimes exhaustive analysis just isn’t necessary. Sometimes our analytics requirements just aren’t that sophisticated.

Twenty years ago, WalMart knew when it needed to pull a product from the shelf. This didn’t require advanced analytics to drill down on the category, affinities, the seasonality, or the purchaser. It was simple: if the product didn’t sell after six days, free up the shelf space and move on. After all, there were other products to sell.

Why does this matter? Because we get so wrapped up in new, more sophisticated technologies that we forget about our requirements. Sometimes we just need to know what the problem and resulting action is. We don’t necessarily need to know the “why” every time. Often, all business users want is the information that’s good enough to support the decision they need to make.

Link to original post