The Value of Business Analytics: Identifying the Path to Profitability

WHY YOU NEED AN EXECUTION PLAN

Planning is an essential component of successful delivery. Although the “draw-shoot-aim” school of delivery might be exciting, it is nowhere near as successful or efficient as having a well-structured plan before the project is executed.

Inevitably, teams that fail to plan experience a wide variety of challenges when trying to deliver tactical initiatives. They:

• Often experience significant delays because of unforeseen issues
• Constantly fight against scope creep due to badly defined project objectives
• Struggle to maintain the value they have created
• Face significant and constant resource constraints
• Create internal friction by failing to give other stakeholders sufficient notice of their required input

As if these issues were not bad enough, failing to plan also creates a variety of strategic issues. While business analytics has the potential to create competitive advantage, it is rare that an organization is able to realize this goal without understanding the path it will need to take to get there. When team members are missing this road map, they not only usually fail to create any real competitive advantage; they often struggle to simply prioritize their tactical activities. They will often try to do everything and, more often than not, deliver nothing.

The Analytics Team That Never Delivered

One memorable experience involved a fairly detailed discussion with an analytics team in a midsized organization. I had met with the team members to try to help ...