Business Intelligence 101 — know your stakeholders
Hi there BI enthusiasts! Welcome to my article series on Business Intelligence 101. Let me answer a few questions directly before starting this journey.
- Is this another AI-generated content? Hahaa no! I was able to identify cars, traffic lights, and bicycles correctly :-D
- Do I qualify to write this kind of article series? Well, my friend, let me tell you about my background in a short and sweet way. 5 years into Business Intelligence. Have helped top-level companies in Sri Lanka, Canada, and Singapore with Data visualization and BI. Self-taught on the job, which helped me understand exactly what the industry demands. Check my LinkedIn for more.
If you are still reading the article, I hope you have found the answer to question 2 (wink). So, let’s dig into “Know your stakeholders”. You might encounter many stakeholders while working in the domain as a business intelligence professional. All those can be categorized into 4 main types.
Think that you are a BI professional working with AIISnotChatGPT pvt ltd which is an online clothing store. The customer support team is interested in understanding buying and payment patterns, seasonal trends, etc., in order to update their mobile application and optimize performance. They have asked you to propose a BI solution that utilizes customer data and ensures accessibility for their analysts. How do you align this requirement with the stakeholders?
3……2….1..Hola! Here is my solution. I hope this helps you understand how to differentiate stakeholders in a project.
Survival tip: Stakeholders can vary from organization to organization and project to project. The key is to identify their role and the specific objectives of the project.
So, how can you understand their objectives?
Look directly into their eyes and ask these four magical words: “What are your objectives?”
If you are still reading this, please refrain from doing the above. You might lose your job. Effective communication is the key to understanding stakeholder objectives. Based on my experience, here are a few strategies to enhance communication and better understand your stakeholders.
- Ask the following questions yourself.
a. Who is my audience?
b. What insights do they already have?
c. What exactly do they need to know?
d. When should I deliver this?
e. Do I have all the details to start with?
If I am unclear about any of the above, I will arrange a meeting with the relevant stakeholder to clear it out as soon as possible.
- Start documenting your journey — Initiate your documentation process from the very day you receive the project requirements using your preferred format. For documentation purposes, I use Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and for drawing flow diagrams, I use draw.io
- Study your project — Be ready to answer questions about the aspects of your solution and how it will bring value to your organization.
- Create realistic deadlines and prioritize tasks — Assess your workload.
- Maintain the visibility of the work you do — communicate frequently about the milestones you complete.
That’s it for now :-) Tired of reading? Here is a small treat.
Enjoyed the article? Follow me on LinkedIn: Kanishka Randunu.
