Roadmap to Self-

Service Analytics
and BI Adoption

Organizations launching self-service analytics and BI

(A&BI) struggle to find the right balance between agility
and control. To combat this, build a governed self-service
analytics capability that enables and supports end users.

A lack of guardrails around Inefficient use of resources

self-service A&BI can lead
to chaos and a whole host siloed data and analytics
of quality, security and inconsistent findings
performance problems like: across reports

In fact, 70% of organizations say they

regularly argue about whose data is correct.

Phase 1:
Prework
Start

Strategy

Identify analytics use cases and establish a strategy

and roadmap based on project value and feasibility.
Select an A&BI platform to support self-service. Tip! Engaging with
the business early
Roles and Skills and often helps to
overcome resistance
Assess the organization’s baseline data literacy. to change that will
slow the adoption of
Assign and train the A&BI platform administrator. self-service.

Data

Understand current data architecture and review data quality.

Design a data delivery layer for self-service.

Process and Governance

Identify data stewards and establish a governance board.

Draft data access, usage and distribution policies.

Phase 2:
Pilot

Strategy

Identify a pilot use case and the business users who

will participate in it. Choose something feasible that
will deliver real value.

Roles and Skills

Tip! Use the pilot
to improve the data Design and deliver a training program to the pilot group.
layer and training
program and to Create a repository of resources, documentation
identify the strengths and best practices.
and weaknesses of
the A&BI tool. Data

Build a data layer Options include: a self-service data

mart, materialized views in a database, a
for self-service and semantic layer or data virtualization tool, or
catalog assets. a semantic layer within the A&BI platform.

Process and Governance

Design and deliver a training program to the pilot group.

Create a repository of resources, documentation
and best practices.

Phase 3:
Launch

Strategy

Leverage business analysts in lines of business (LOBs) to

champion self-service analytics for their teams/departments.

Roles and Skills

Expand resource materials.

Tip! Create a
Build a portfolio of templates and prototype feedback loop with
reports and dashboards. the business to
diagnose and follow
up on issues, and
make improvements
Data
as necessary.

Grow the data layer to include more use cases.

Focus on data quality, understandability

and security protocols.

Process and Governance

Flesh out the A&BI monitoring solution to include

more user behaviors and platform health metrics.

Phase 4:
Scale

Strategy

Encourage adoption of self-service by promoting

and recognizing valuable analytical content created
by the business.

Tip! Look out for Roles and Skills

opportunities to evolve
from descriptive to
predictive analytics by Diversify training delivery modes and support.
leveraging advanced Encourage self-service champions to train others
platform capabilities, in their LOB.
such as automated
machine learning
(AutoML). Data

Enable more skilled users to do self-service data preparation.

Establish a dataset development life cycle management
process based on XOps principles.

Process and Governance

Incorporate automation into the monitoring solution and

leverage an analytics catalog to prevent duplication.

Collaboration with the

business must be an ongoing
process. It drives value by
facilitating agility, balanced
against an appropriate level
of governance that scales as
adoption increases.

Source: Gartner
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