Blog: Krish Krishnan: Why do you need Organizational Alignment

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Why do you need Organizational Alignment

What makes a data warehouse or a business intelligence initiative a successful one?. The answer is simple, an informed and aligned organization. Yes it is a true fact that when you have organizational alignment on a new initiative like your DW/BI project or program it is more simpler to manage since there is a pride of ownership and all the stakeholders participate equally in the process and thus the overall initiative is a resounding success.

How do you go about getting organizational alignment. Whether you are a SMB with a DW project or a large fortune 50 company, you need the following individuals or teams to be supportive and involved in a DW project/program

1. Business Sponsor - This is a team or an executive who champions the initiative in the organization.
2. Business Users - This is a team of end users who will be the customers of the DW project. The alignment of these users into the project is a critical success factor.
3. IS teams - This is a team that develops the DW and BI projects and provides all the technology support to develop and maintain the DW.
4. QA teams - This is a team of blended business analysts and quality assurance analysts who can validate the DW and BI projects to ensure accuracy and quality.
5. IT teams - The infrastructure team that maintains the hardware, storage and supports the technical infrastructure is a key component to the success of this program or project.

When you have these teams in alignment on your business requirements, technology selection and implementation schedule, you can be assured of success in the DW initiative.

To build out the DW/BI projects you still need methodology, management, design, budget etc, but all these items rely on the teams coordinating in the initiative. There are a number of books and articles on this subject to read, but simply put if you can follow simple rules and achieve organizational alignment, more than half your battle is won.

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