What are the most effective ways to build a strong BI team?

This is more to delve into the WHY and the WHAT rather than the HOW? WHAT exactly is expected from the set of BI Reports and Dashboards WHY are these Dashboards, Reports and Visuals necessary for biz users? WHAT decisions are expected to be driven by these Reports and Dashboards? WHAT will be the aspects based on which these Reports and Dashboards will be used and adopted by the end users? HOW will the success and ROI of these Reports and Dashboards be measured??

If a decision is made to expand the BI team, it means BI in the organization becomes more mature, hopefully there is a BI strategy in place. That means: -understand business objectives, -assess current data infrastructure, -define Key metrics and KPIs, -establish policies for data access, quality, security, compliance, -define acceptance criteria to measure the success of the BI strategy implementation. The BI tools which are to be used should be defined, on-prem vs. cloud topic clarified. I strongly believe, that the strategy is a necessary component, as implementing it within the defined timeline - is a proven way to maximize revenue and stay competitive. BI team can significantly improve the effectiveness of the day-to-day operations.

One of the best solutions for implementing BI ideas or solving BI related problems is hiring proper data professionals and enthusiasts internally or externally, and develop them. Developing both hard and soft skills. - Hard is needed due to the fast pace of emerging new technologies. Tech stack might slightly or significantly change in time. - Soft as critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, depending on the position, could be presentation skills and data visualization as the tools are updated frequently and using new best practices is essential.

Make sure you have SMEs from the business areas covered by your analytics. Reviewers of your data results will be more interested in their views of the utility of your results rather than yours.

Having a team solely composed of individuals with formal data analytic education might seem perfect. But in reality, it's not always the best approach because having diverse backgrounds in healthcare, banking, media, and other fields brings varied skills and perspectives that are valuable in data analysis.

When we jumped into supporting the biggest bank with their car loan’s business intelligence, my team pitched in to spot business trends and boost their performance. We tackled the whole project with data cleaning, transformations, and analytics. Each team member had a specific role: the ETL developer handled data transfers to the SQL warehouse, data analysts cleaned up the data, and I focused on crafting dashboards and reports while collaborating with stakeholders to plan future reporting needs. We nailed it with a divide-and-conquer approach, meeting daily for standups to stay in sync.

Provide a real life example of where your analysis has changed minds/strategy/outcomes from inside your current organisation or in the worst case prior employers. Proof of concept is everything.

An underrated skill for individuals and teams building out a data-driven focus for the organization is being able to market and sell the concept of data-driven culture. A few tips: > Build the high-level mission but be able to communicate the impact to the individual ("What's in it for me?") > Prioritize quick wins with engaged stakeholders. Let those engaged stakeholders present the benefits and be your champions.... it'll be more powerful coming from the business > Consistent communication as the journey progresses.... keep showing the progress and impact of new solutions and the cultural shift. > Highlight the sexy, big, ticket-items that are in the roadmap. Build the hype .... and deliver on that hype :)

Facilitate, don't dictate. In a decentralized BI team setup, the BI team no longer designs and builds everything. A key part of their job is to nurture the data and analytics capabilities in each department.