Creating the business intelligence ecosystem at Microsoft
Hi. My name is Kirkland Barrett and I'm director of business programs here at Microsoft and, I help run the bi space what. We wanted to do is share with you a video that we took at the Microsoft, data insight summits, which was put on by the Microsoft, power bi group and in, this we talked about how we do bi it here in Microsoft, how we've evolved, how we think about it and how we roll this out across the entire company, and we've. Occur a lot of interest in this from customers, like yourselves so we wanted to share this more broadly enjoy. The show. And. What I want to talk to you guys about today is about how to drive bi into your organizations, so we, all know how important bi here, is let me quickly ask how many of you guys use, power bi. Good. I would expect that all right how many of you guys would like to have other people in your organization use. Bi, as much as you write, and is it easy no. And. What. What, we found is it's definitely a multi-year, journey and this is the one thing I would just say that you know kick it off with you guys is have patience, have persistence. You're fighting the right fight it's. Something that's important for everybody to be able to develop within the organization, over time. So. What. I wanted to first do. Was. Just. Set a little bit of a context, here in terms. Of the importance, of BI and I'm sure for you guys who've been MBI, you know a lot, of this stuff that's happening, but, first of all is that explosion, of data so we've all talked about and dealt. With the fact that our warehouse is getting bigger we have more Mart's there's. More and more data that's coming out there even from a structure perspective, but, then also we've, got this new unstructured, data that's coming as well so social media hit, us you know 10 years ago and we have to deal with it so new data that's coming in that we have to be able to deal with it's becoming more and more important, for companies social. Media is an asset, companies, are valued, by billions, because of their data the information, they have on people, now.
The Thing that's gonna make this worse for us is the Internet of Things how many of you guys are dealing with Internet, of Things data, already, ok. A few all right the rest of you it's coming and, I, would say that in every company, you're gonna be dealing with this even at Microsoft, we. Have Internet of Things getting, wired up in our conference rooms figuring. Out how do when we use our conference, rooms more effectively, to be able to run meetings more effectively, so even. Things that aren't as directly. Applicable as you think transportation. Etc that's, gonna be Internet of Things your, company's, meeting, rooms are gonna be Internet of Things so we're gonna have to be dealing with that data and that's a heck of a lot more data than social, media right there's gonna be billions of sensors across, across. The world that we're gonna have to ingest and it's, not just that we have to but there's an incredible value in that too so just like I said the conference. Room experience understanding. What, conference, rooms are being used how long does it take to get a meeting started, is the conference room actually being utilized could, it be utilized for other people you know you start to correlate. That than with other data and new opportunities, open and I think that's the cool thing that wouldn't we deal with bi is, all this correlation, and it, used to be in bi was, all about the structured, reports, the operational, reports, and you know people wanted to report in one format now it's the speed of how quickly can you bring new things together that as people think quickly can you respond with bi quickly, and, I know that you using power bi you're seeing that you're seeing the ability of that and that's pretty exciting. You. Know and so this. Is just again more of a wave, that's coming to us as we saw from the hands only a few of us are experiencing, this now in the next 5-10 years it's going to become even more important. Now. The other thing that we're dealing with is and we're, dealing with in as Microsoft. Is disruption. In the market in the marketplace new, companies, are coming up fast, and the new companies, that are competing, and winning are the ones that are thinking differently, they're using data to be able to do things differently, and those, of us who are incumbents, in our industry and we all are there.
Might Be a few of you in these categories but most, of us are incumbents, there's going to be a disruption, the new the newly disrupted, are going to be disrupted again so we have to have our organizations. Tooled, to be able to think faster, than what's going on out there Microsoft. We've been around for a long time, there's, new companies coming up all the time that we're facing and we, as an organization. Have to get better smarter. About moving faster. To be able to respond to this and this, isn't a central, think-tank that's going to solve this. Have 200,000, people across the globe in the company, and they're all pretty smart, the question is how do we light them up so that we're able to tap into all of their insights, so, that you, don't know when that next insights gonna pop across the world that's gonna help us generate, a new business that's, gonna help us reduce cost. That's going to respond to a competitive, pressure but, this is this is a matter of not, just competitive, opportunity but, it's also competitive survival. And so that's a piece of like just talking about the context, of how important, this is and that business intelligence, in the hands of your people, the people that have the instincts, the insights, the questions, this. Is why. Bi, is important, so. Within. Microsoft, you know I've been there like I said 11 years I've gone through the process of doing, departmental. Bi and then bringing back into one central, warehouse how many of you guys have one central warehouse in your company. All. Right there's a there's, a few most, companies don't a company, as big as Microsoft. It just, wasn't possible and. So, we, really had to rethink again, with a competitive, pressures we're having, out there the realities, of our business, how, dispersed, we are just, the nature of our culture our DNA, what was important, and this is where self-service, bi came into place and, if, you look at it you, know I I dealt, with creating. BR DS right so you have your B Rd 9, 12, months 18 months later that warehouse got created it was amazing, it met the spec but, the problem is the business shifted and I always found it funny the, developers would get upset that the business shifted, why. Can't the business figure out what they do and, that wasn't the businesses fault it's just the business is moving and it's moving faster, and faster and. So that's where you had to have really good foresight. In. Terms of what you wanted to create but it always moved and the business is always pounding. Me to say can, you just get me an agility environment. Can you just get me someplace where I can play with the data I don't know what I want and this is where self-service, was so important, and this, is where we just landed on you know 85 percent of the insights come from questions you didn't know you had, they're, coming live time there's. Also just the behavior of when you're in a meeting how many people are in meetings, where it's just a static, PowerPoint, slide with data on it right.
You. Know how those meetings go there's not much interaction somebody. Asked one question that the slide doesn't answer, and it's hey we'll get back to you at the next meeting with that information, it's just it's not a fast way to be able to chew through data so what. We're trying to really develop is a culture, within Microsoft, Satya talks about it developing a data culture within Microsoft, and it's really when he first said that people are like yeah, but. What does that mean and, it you know year later it's like yeah I think I know that means more I still, don't know what that means but within, two to three years of investment, in this you're starting to see it pay off and power bi is a big part of this we're trying to get power bi everywhere. Where everybody. Sees it all the time and. When, they look at it first of all people are afraid. To admit some people are scared of data they're, they're insecure about their ability to analyze, they, don't want to look like they don't know what they're what, they're doing, I'm, impressed about, the number of people call themselves analysts, who really, aren't that good at data and. So, that's just one thing that you have to keep in mind that this, is getting people comfortable, with and practicing, just the basics, of it we use the metaphor of you, know getting into the deep end of the pool versus the shallow end I talked, about the kiddie pool right, people, are scared to even get in the kiddie pool with data so you've got to make it more pervasive, and in front of people out there so that they just become, accustomed. To it they see their peers using, it they start, to understand how to ask questions, of the data those are the little basic, steps but it takes a while and so, from a standpoint the previous slide disruption, we're, developing data capability. Across the entire company within all those 200,000, employees so the weak think smarter, and are more comfortable with data so we can tap into the power of things like Internet, of Things data. The. Other aspect, here the second point here is these unplanned. Insights, come from seats that are being used ok I'm sure you guys have dealt with in companies where you bought licenses, maybe from us and. The seats weren't used people weren't using the software, the most important, thing with bi is that people are using it on a regular basis, right because, again if somebody's, just sitting down there you, know in the middle of Europe and and. We're playing with data and they came up with a new insight that generated millions of dollars that's what matters I view, my role. As trying. To stir the pot of popcorn, okay I don't know what kernels going to pop next my, job is to add heat and, be able to add kernels, in there and get them popping in those unexpected, insights happening, now, the cool thing from nighti perspective. I don't know how many of you guys are in traditional IT or in business but, I'm in the IT organization, technically. This, actually frees up IT to do the important. Hard thing so historically. We had to create those reports, and we never created them fast enough right and we're, always having to recreate them create a new one and it was never quite right but. What we've been able to do with power beyond self-service, bi is shift that more to the business because they, know what they need they have the IP they, know the context, and they know what needs to shift that enables IT then to focus on the hard things that we've never been able to really focus on as much as we want this, gets into the big things like master data management those. Really, centrally, controlled warehouses. That do need to have tight controls etc so this is actually a good thing for IT is to shift those workloads towards, the business we. Believe in the, the mantra to say bi. Is better, done closer to the business okay and that just shifts, everything, a little bit closer, it doesn't mean everything just goes over there and the business does everything but, more should be going, to the business if we're gonna have speed okay.
So. This. Gets into talking. About one. Of the models, that we use which is thinking. About architecting. For change so again change is inevitable in the business world and it's gonna be even faster, now. You have to build this around a nice solid, core so again this doesn't mean self-service, bi solves, all when, power bi first launched 1.0, three years ago people, thought warehousing, was dead and, that's not true there still needs to be warehouses, but you can rethink about again. Where you put certain workloads so you have to have a nice solid core, this, gets into master data management this gets into things that just are debits, and credits you, cannot argue about that that just is. But. You have to be able to have that then where, that's locked down maybe that's following socks or what-have-you but that's that's all a core that IT really should be focusing on, around. That is a ring about semi, solid data and when I say semi solid, it's business processed data. Your businesses, have to have stable, processes, that they run on they have to be predictable, reliable etc. But they evolve on they're constantly evolving now they're not going to change day by day but, they're evolving and so you have to have a data architecture, that supports that that, data architecture, needs to tap into your master data in that solid Court has to be built upon that but, you have to architect, with a reality it's going to change a bit now, this final ring this, is the ring that we really enjoy is the, fluid stuff this is the stuff that's fast-moving this is the competitive, data this is the social data this is the new data that's popping up out there and, that's. The part where a lot of IT organizations. Especially it, gets scared of this they they want to control it again. In this, architecture there's, more control in the middle there's, less control in the outer ring and that's important, so. If, you think of also different businesses, be it your overall, business or organizations. Within your business you're. Going to want to operate in different rings finance probably wants to be closer to that middle sales, and marketing definitely wants me on that outer ring and so you have to make sure the organization's are set up for you can't have one size fits all you need to expand the spectrum, and architect, for that but, if you get this healthy, where the outer rings are relying upon the inner rings but you also have the flexibility, that's appropriate, you get a fast functioning, healthy organization, that can ingest, new data and respond, quickly okay, so, again this is really about just setting the context, for why self-service, bi is so important, you're all here at this conference you, know that's important, but, just in terms of giving you more context that you can bring back home and as well this.
Is How we think about it within Microsoft. So. What. We did was like. I said I came from the enterprise, data warehouse days, and we had to reboot rethink, what, we were gonna do for bi. With. The enterprise data warehouse we do you know 5 10 warehouses, a year, and definitely, four very important, businesses, but there were so many people across the company that didn't know how to use bi or weren't, really even turned on with the capabilities. On it and, so, we decided you know what what if we rethought about our role within IT it's. Not and we definitely have a lot of IT organizations. So it's not to say all of IT did this this was a central group a shared service group but. We said let's, go ahead and really push about self-service. Bi across, the company and rethink, what does that mean so we created this program called bi at Microsoft. And, this is really focus on be able to turn on the service globally. Make. People aware of it globally, and. Make sure that they know how to be able to use it that they use it and then they know how to use it and then they know how to use it better right and then again we make it pervasive. And. I'm gonna be talking, a lot about this now. I will be honest we've invested, in this but, the patterns, and practices, here you can all take back the other piece that we're doing is we're working very closely with the product group my. Team works with them on a daily basis, in terms of what they need to build next etc, and, that's been a great partnership, and hopefully that helps you as well because we become that representative. Enterprise. Customers, out there but the other thing we talked him about is the importance of these things I'm going to talk about the, the importance, of these things for folks like you who are champions and and advocates. Of BI that, you get some of these capabilities, in your hands you're seeing the, community, site building out with power bi comm right that's, that's a foundation, of it we can go further for you right there's other things that we can do from a training perspective we've, got great training resources out there can we make it easier for you so please, keep, that in mind as context, these are a bit of previews, of what we'd like to be able to bring to you. So. From a standpoint of the, goals of my service, is really, to increase again self, self-service. Analytics adoption. Within Microsoft, and I'm, just gonna summarize and we'll go through this a little more in detail but we take a website, first approach, to facilitate. Scale so, old IT was I'm, gonna set up a meeting with this group and talk to these 10 people and try to influence and then the next thing I'm gonna go meet with another 10 people on the next day I've got 200,000, people I can't do that I have to think about ways to be able to achieve a lot greater scale so, we've doubled down in creating a website you saw it on the previous page there in terms of just that homepage and the type of information that we have on it but, we try to drive into a central, way using. Modern, concepts, that you know we use as companies, to market to our folks to market, internally, as well as to be able to get that message out there get resources out there available people's. Fingers to, that's, the fastest. Way that I can affect 200,000, people what's, the new thing that we seem to be having to talk about with people on a regular basis get that on the website let's build visibility, out there to the website, we've. Leveraged the rest of IT to amplify adoption, so if I am gonna meet with people I'm gonna meet with people can help me affect. More people okay so I'll go meet with my sister. IT organizations. That represent a business process unit IT, work, and I'm gonna sell them on power, bi because, I know if I can sell them on power bi they become a channel and a reseller, for me conceptually. Right so again I'm always trying to think about ways to be able to get scale product.
Group First with feedback for scenario gaps we bent hard on the product group three years ago we, shut down our central, development, of BI we said we don't do bi for anybody anymore okay, IT said we don't do bi now our business process unit groups close to the business do but, essentially we said we don't do bi we, had a bad habit of if the product wasn't quite right we'd. Create our own complement. To that product we. Would call it glue okay, and, it's things that we, then as IT we got very proud and attached to but we weren't really helping that product, get better we said none of that we're. Gonna double down and drive all of our gaps back into the product and hopefully that's helping you guys I mean I'm pretty excited about power bi now especially how many of you guys use 1.0. Okay. Whew all right so, you guys know where we came from right 2.0, so much better how, many of you guys have used or we're aware of power bi when it launched in GA like. In july/august okay it's, pretty cool where it's come in the last few months huh and it's amazing like you think back that, was August July August and and all, the improvements they've made in the last you know six months and, they're just getting started but. This is where for us this. Is the biggest dev team I've ever had at my fingertips right, that's why I think about the product group and they're there for you too. You guys have probably given feedback on power bi comm I mean you can vote for features and stuff and if you haven't look for that look for it they're watching that load listening, to that they're interacting with that that's driving the roadmap okay the, product group has rethought, about how they interact with their community and really, look at you guys kind of crowdsourcing. What they need to build and, that's what we bet hard on with NIT and it's exciting that's paying off and then, ultimately we, constantly, look for unlocking, and an analytic, experiences, it's kind of a mouthful but really what that means is it's, not just about having the tool out there it's, about really understanding and, and getting, the data the, support, that's involved, in that just the nuances, of be able to use data why, are people not using it in their meeting why are they still cut and pasting that into PowerPoint, right so we're trying, to chew through the nuances, of those experiences, to really get it light up where we can hit that vision, of people, just do bi and they just use bi right and they just interact with bi.
We. Also scale through suppliers so I made the comments say we don't do bi but what I do do is I, bring in suppliers. And we have a preferred supplier, Network that if our business, wants, somebody to be able to do bi for them I've got preferred, suppliers that I connect them with they they're in the business of scaling up scaling down I don't need to worry about that with an IT I don't need to go plan budgets, and make sure I'm fully, utilized, with the people I have I supply, I mean I scale through suppliers, we're. Also very telemetry, driven, so we're, we're, pushing data we, try to use data so, everything that we do both, in terms of the product usage but then also all the things that we do from a marketing website perspective, we're constantly looking at data to be able to get smarter, about what's, working what's not working I'll, talk a little that later and finally cloud first mobile first changing. Pattern for analytics, we're constantly trying to look forward, Jim Jim Dubois I don't know if you guys saw yesterday, at the, last session was kind of talking about within the organization, the clouds inevitable, it's just a matter of win-win and what right but trying, to get ahead of that pattern to understand what, and when can start to move there as important, for us as an organization, I would ask you guys to do that as well some, of the sister products within Microsoft, is the Cortana, analytics suite. Incredible. Stuff for the bi developer, incredible. Stuff I'm still being built but, incredible stuff and it's going to light up whole new ways to be able to work with data within the cloud. So. Talking about how we think about driving, ultimately. To adoption, is, this. Is getting pulling, into some marketing, concepts, but the first thing that we always do is we talk about driving awareness people, need to know this exists, so. Just getting the word out there, we you know we do informal, polls in the hall hey have you heard about power bi you know and that gives us a pulse point we do formal polls we do surveys etc and we understand who, knows about power bi who, doesn't, but we're constantly doing pulses, and again, I talked about the patience, and persistence that you guys need to have to drive bi it is, that we've, been at it for three years now across. The company we, get help from Satya, he mentions it all the time that helps so, that's one lesson if you can get a leader who just helps amplify that, helps but you have to be patient and persistent with getting awareness out there once.
People Are aware of it then they will start to understand, what it is they'll say huh I've heard about this thing tell me more and tell, me more is help me wrap my head around how am I get value I still don't understand, how to use it but I want, to understand how I might, be able to benefit from it so again, these two kind of go in tandem awareness, and understanding awareness, understanding and, its base hit base hit base hit just, get the word out there and pulse it once. You get to that point you get people interested enough that they're invest, and trying to get enabled, so we. Call we think of enablement as you, know there's service and support but a lot of this comes into training, getting people trained yeah and I'm gonna say the hardest thing about training, is not teaching somebody how to use Dax that's pretty hard the, hardest part about training is to figure out how to get somebody started in five, minutes, okay, because you will either. Win, or lose them in that first five minutes not to say you can't get them back later but you'll win and lose them your opportunity with that first five minutes and so we, we, took in our, program, six months constantly. Experimenting, and chewing, on what is getting started nope that's too long no what's getting started still too long too, complicated, but. Just don't underestimate, when. You're trying to advocate and sell people within your organization about. How to use me I try. To make that first bit as simple, as possible, you know we've thought about different. Tactics, like you, know I'll be in meetings and again that PowerPoint pops up and somebody's got data up there I'm like come on it's, not power bi but. I know you have data back there can I show you how to quickly put what you have in there in power bi because a lot of times the data behind the powerpoints not the most complicated and it's, something that contextually. That person, is attached to and they can all sign see it light, up within power bi and they go oh my goodness I didn't know it was that easy I didn't know that was that much more interactive, so make, it simple for people there's, a lot of Excel users out there right you. Know we've all either. Come from or used we know it sells pretty pervasive take, those opportunities where it's just like hey you already got something excel let's put in power bi it's as simple as that and that's the part about making it simple that first step something that's conceptually, they can wrap their head around so, then they get more, interest, to be able to get more invested, to be able to do more, training, the. Piece that we look at from a training perspective also, is you, need to give people guidance right like it's, a curriculum. We've, worked on a what we call dashboard, in a day it's, something we piloted, internally, it's, a day-long session, where people come to be able to walk through training and we're also trying to stand this up through suppliers to offer externally. So, that's one of the things that you know fall out with your Microsoft contacts, on is dashboard, of the day we're trying to get that rippled out to suppliers across the nation to support folks like you that's, been helpful. Anyway. So but. The Train the other part where the curriculum, is is helping, people understand, when I am beginning, how, do I walk through the first training so one of the things you'll see on power bi there's a lot of training out there a lot of documentation, right it can be overwhelming, for somebody who's not as passionate as yourself, to get started, and go through those beginning, curriculum, intermediate, curriculum, so that's one of the things we're trying to work with the product group on as well and, then, finally it's adoption right so getting people enabled, getting them trained getting, to adopt and again this is the behavior of using, the data not just I created it that's pretty cool and we want them to do that but, also using, it on a regular basis, and, we're trying to get definitely. We're focused on getting monthly, active users getting, people using on a monthly basis, we want to change that to weekly right from, a data culture perspective you, don't want just monthly, behavior, that's a that's, a rhythm of the business thing that's a monthly business review that's not really data driven that's, probably data hindsight.
You, Want people using this on a regular weekly, basis, and, that's that's part of the trick is getting the initial adoption, I used it I'm, using it more frequently and I'm using it all the time and so we keep trying to push on that. Alright. You're gonna take the model a little bit deeper now so the last one was a nice simple one that's our executive. Summary this, gets into a little bit more really, what we do within, bi microsoft to drive this for. Those of you guys who've read, crossing, the chasm this. Probably looks pretty familiar so, we, didn't invent this this, is marketing, speak this is a you know tried and true within marketing, especially within the tech world and we're dealing with technology within. Our companies, so. This is really showing that there's an adoption curve that happens out there with any technology. And, you've got different psychological, profiles, up here in terms of people's risk tolerance, or interest and be able to use new technology, and you should be aware of this concept, and start to think about who who in my organization. That I can influence falls into these buckets we, use this methodically. And intentionally, within, our program, the, innovators, just to summarize love, new technology, technology. Doesn't need to be perfect to be a little bit buggy they like using the first stuff some of you guys are likely, innovators, right, people. Who participate, in the private, or public previews, definitely, fall within this bucket, they love to give feedback and it's just man I want to use it first right I want to sign up for it first. And it's really important, for these folks because this helps to give us some of that initial feedback technically. Does it work is there any rough edges that we need to be aware of before we start to put the heat on it and then be able to tell other people because if we bring in people who are later in the curve early, when it doesn't quite work perfectly, but, it's got potential they, get a bad a bad impression and that's hard to win them back so we try to not, tell them about the newest stuff or if they are aware of it we caution them okay we try to get the right people there early. Adopters, these are folks who have less, tolerance for it not working technically. But, they are willing to be the first ones to try in a business, situation or, a real world situation. And it doesn't have to be perfect. In terms of all the scenarios supported, on it but it does need to work to be able to get a business value out of it these are probably some of the most critical people to find the, first bucket they just love new technology you just got to tell them there's something new second, bucket you got to get them hey you got to be a first mover on this you know this is where we're headed, they tend to be again that visionary, they understand, where things are head and they're willing to give that a shot now the most important, thing about this group is that. You find out what they've done and you, celebrate, it okay so, you again, reward, them for being early adopter, but also it's so important, to tell the next group the early majority hey, these guys they, went in the pool there wasn't a shark okay, they. Were successful so celebrate those examples, to be able to activate, the next group which is the early majority okay, now, I gray, out late majority and laggards cuz, from an IT perspective I don't have time to do that because there's always something new so we really focus on this front end of it and you, know the curve shows it once you get to the top it's just downhill right well, maybe, not that easy but you get enough critical.
Mass That the, rest of the people do start to see hey everybody, else is doing it I need to do it too so we are front and focused on that so again the objective is a new, services, new technology. Through this curve as fast as possible, now we, thought of power bi 1.0, 2.0, in this but we also think of new features within power bi so the support from multi-dimensional. Cubes we have to run through this process as well so we, look for major features, that are coming through that are important, to us in an organization. Identify. Them and then be able to run through this process who are my innovators, they're gonna use it first who are my early adopters that I can get some success stories and then we tell everybody please use it it's ready for primetime okay. The. Other piece that we do is we think about this in terms of, different. Functions, and I'll talk about these in a little bit but like marketing, social media training, we've got different tactics, that we're using for tech within each of these groups so there's different things we do for training for the for. The for. The the innovators. Okay there may not eat really even, be training out there it's a brand new it's often you know off the press and so, from, that standpoint how do we do it you know we try to get some webinars up there where people just talk about it there's no documentation, yet they just talk about it okay when. We move into the early adopters before I got some documentation. We're, starting to get some, rigor to it again. It might be some live sessions, in there but live sessions they're expensive but by the time we get to early adopters. That stuff that are beyond video because, that needs to be on-demand so everybody can see it right so it's just we think about within each of these work tracks how do we be, able to address the needs of each of these personas, okay. So from a standpoint of the framework, we use you know if I put this slide up and you didn't know what I was talking about or where I'm from or whatever you probably wouldn't guess I T okay. You, probably want to guess I T and yet definitely take photos of this because this, framework has been, used for three years here and, it works but. This is where you know if you're in a technical, organization, you're in a business organization as, well but, if you're a technical organization. And, especially, in IT you have to rethink about what your role is because like I said before the.
Place Where you get your ROI on BI is when people use it, because that's when the insight happens, that generates, millions of dollars if people aren't using it and or not using it as well as they could man, you're not getting your oh I it's, not again, my ROI on my data. Warehouse that got me this standard, report that's that's old school new, school is I need that ROI because I need that insight that's going to help my company not be disrupted right, and, so that's where this use comes in so now we're starting to think hey with, an IT we, need people who are more like marketing MBAs, okay, we need people who are thinking that way about how do you drive, quickly. Getting, this capability, out there and pervasively, so. We've, got these general buckets strategy. Speaks, for itself, super-important. Marketing, we've got a ton, of things that we do marketing, here and I've just this is just high-level of some of the stuff that we do but. You know these are things like marketing segmentation, again, understanding. Those adoption, curves understanding, who the analysts, are versus the business users are versus the BI developers, and be able to speak to them differently using. Surveys, to be able to understand the pulse out there what's working what's not working what's the unexpected. Nuance, that people aren't getting that. You have to be able to break through I'm so super important we have people who do PR we do internal, press releases so there's, a lot of different email distributions, out there by organizations, we, write monthly, press releases internally. And we push them out to those channels so again we use a lot of concepts, that X small, companies, external, are using to compete in the internet and we pivot, all of these concepts, internally, to say I've, got two hundred thousand people across the globe we have to activate, how. Do we use those concepts, out there social, huge, okay you guys are probably involved in the power bi community, and you see some of the power of that internally, we use Yammer the a lot of different social tools that are out there but, we've created a Yammer group of 5,000, people pretty, active people, can ask questions get questions answered I don't have to do anything the community takes care of itself took a while to build it we had to get to a tipping point in critical mass of it but it's really really, important, to, be able to have people help each other faster, they, also can ask questions about data, so a lot of these things that are happening out there where the data is moving fast you have community, to be able to support that very, powerful, we, also look for champions, within that so you'll find within your organization, there are going to be some superstars, you're probably some of those superstars yourself, but, find. Them celebrate, them VIP, them, give them special treatment figure. That out because those, are the people that can help in the social community go further they're also going to be your internal, advocates, to get more scale I talked, about website, I've talked, about training, service. And support, not. Always the most exciting two words but. Super. Critical so be thinking about that experience, that you have within your company about providing, service and support this, is really important, for us because, you know things, won't always go right but when, you have a good experience about, when. It's not going right you, feel much better about, sticking, with it and so we look at this as another end-to-end experience about, how our people reach out so for support do they know about the community how are we broadcasting.
Out Notifications, when. They come to our site is it super easy that you should do this then that to contact, us right are are, we getting back to people in. An effective, manner do we know when and how to escalate to, the product, group etc but really, just making sure that that runs like a nice well-oiled, machine, we'll help you by it'll help by you grace, when, you need it right because you you were running a great service, it's a great product you're doing the right thing but occasionally, something hiccups, and you want to be able to retain people's confidence, through that tunnel. Emma tree I talked about that this. Was a comment, to say we use telemetry, across, all of these things so we have power, bi dashboards, on pretty much every block box up here so I've, got an uber dashboard, that I look at from a service perspective in that my bottom line is adoption, that's what I look for is the net result is adoption, and again adoption. Monthly and weekly you. But I also want to make sure that all of our work tracks, are functioning, and healthy in this and that we're learning about how do we do social better what's working on social we do contests, we, giveaway surface Pro's for. The best power bi dashboard right, we'll do social, where, people can vote on it so they're recruiting, their friends - hey go vote for me that builds awareness, right so again it's it's using different, ideas within IT to be able to drive that wider that wider adoption change. Management. Some. People think that everything that we do that I described here has changed and you could argue that we. Make it a subsection, of this overall, adoption. Framework from a standpoint there's, easy change and there's hard change easy, changed, we just run through the Machine right we build awareness get, trained people trained etc there's some hard stuff out there - and that's the big rocks and, this will differ in different organizations. It could be cultural. Political, or what-have-you what's, happening within the company but we'll identify maybe, three, per, semester so, three to, work on in a given six months and then we point all the guns at those things, together, right and then we use formal, change management methodology. To really be smartest. And intentional. As we can about moving hard rocks so one, of the ones for us and this isn't a resistance, thing it's more strategically, important, multi-dimensional. Cubes are now supported, for, us an IT a lot, of the existing, data exists. In multi-dimensional, cubes because that's, just the way you used to build old stuff, right that, old stuff is important, and for us to really get the value out of power bi we, know we need to get that stuff activated, we need to get that unlocked we need to get the people who are building reports, on that data know that you can now use power bi on it we knew those we need those developers, exposing. It out to, people to use power bi so, that one is completely, strategic, we talk about that one every week from a formal change change, management perspective. Then, on the relationships, we. Do provide some advisory, limited. But, some advisories so in general, we want everybody go to the website self-service. You should be able to get up to speed without having to talk to us at all but, occasionally an organization, or a person, does need a little bit more help we have a way for them to then come, to us and ask for that help we.
Try To manage, how deep we if, it's a deep conversation we'll, try to hand them off to a supplier, or to. More of a local organization but. We do provide some advisory, but. Again you always have to be thinking about scale like how do i scale how do i scale my time if I take if, I take three days to help this one person, what about everybody else right so constantly, think about those trade-offs channel. Management so this is a marketing concept and I talked about how we use other IT organizations, as amplifiers that's. Kind of that channel, management thinking, so, again if my bi, advisory can go out and help an organization of 200 people, by. Talking to a couple people and get that organization, turned on and then their resellers, that helps me get things going faster, further so think about what, it kind of those different, channels, within your organization, that you can tap into affect, a couple people and then that blasts out and amplifies, I talked. About that relationship with the product group and again double down on this one you. Guys give feedback to the product group but let your users that you're trying to sell know, about the fact that they can give feedback to and that they can vote right more, votes the better if you guys want to you, guys want to stack the results and get your stuff up there get, all your folks to vote for the feature you want but. That feedback is super important the other thing psychologically is, if, somebody, looks at a product, and it's like and, it doesn't quite do what I want if they know I can, go and tell somebody to, make it better they're, more likely to remain bought in the. Old model of Microsoft, would ship ship things once every three years it's like well that's. Not it right. It's much harder to keep people committed, to it when that's the case but if you can say not. Quite it but if I put this in here you, know in maybe, in two three you know maybe it worse for six, months its features gonna be in there that's kind of cool I'm shaping the product, know life's. Gonna you know Pat times gonna pass by before I noticed, the fact oh that feature request is in there so again, it changes the psychology, of buy-in with people because, they, are able to, they're. Able to be invested, in that product helps shape it and they don't have any excuse, not to use, it right because it's gonna get better it's gonna get faster if there's ever a team to bet on it's this team you, know you think of some of the competitors, out there in tough you think again from July to now what have they done. The speed on this is pretty incredible so use that use, that a lot and. I've talked about suppliers, think about how you can use suppliers to get scale that training, that dashboard and the day that was an example. Of using supplier, thinking, in. That I don't have to ask for any budget to put on weekly.
Dashboard In a day clinics. Across the company because, the business pays for that right they pay I think, it's like 250 bucks for. An individual, to go in a training budget that's not a big deal but that basically makes it a cost neutral service I can scale right, so so long as the class fills its cost neutral and we can scale that out so that's again a creative, way that you can use suppliers we of course have thresholds, if this, class doesn't fill out you know we cancel the class or what have you, but we're also trying to now stand up that's, a dashboard and a which is is, an intro, but, then we're also now starting to stand up modeling, we're also starting, to stand up visualization. Best practice, and some of the more advanced concepts, how do you do - so again like I said not, not, the hardest thing to learn but probably the second hardest thing to learn that's out there right but it's also very important, to be able to really help people take advantage of that that bigger power that's out there and. So. As you take some of that previous slide and you kind of start now and we're going to give you again just a couple different ways to think about we talk about scale, so, this is again this, concept, of scale in terms of the quantity people, you can affect, versus, the touch so, again high touch low touch so again we, do have very. Select. Key. Engagements. Targeted, engagements, we'll go out there these are like your lighthouse is your showcases, these are the things that you're gonna be able to brag about and that, would be at the top where we invest a lot more time on it but then again we, use our business process, you know IT groups, to be able to get some scale we've got SI, partners, and then we also have the broad marketing, that's out there as well so just be thinking about those trade-offs on how you need all of this don't, pick one of these if I only went with the breath down at the bottom we wouldn't be as successful as, we are today. Scalable. Enablement so this is kind of how we operate so again as you think about that awareness we, do segmented, direct email so when I say that we try to identify again, from from. A user base who are those innovators who are the early adopters who, are the business analysts who are the business users, and that we take. Intentional. Messaging, around those because you, know business users don't necessarily, need to hear about Dax they're gonna get scared and intimidated about, it right they need to talk about business value, and and, how company, or how groups are being successful, with and how easy it is to use we. Drive them then to our website, where we have more, information deeper, information, because. You don't want to send out an email that's this long you know nobody reads those right and if anything people just say I can't, even get into it so make it nice and short catch their eye and the hand would click through to more information and. Then this scalable, enablement this is that training part this is the part that's super important for us and this is where again from a standpoint to have guided, learning to dashboard in a day those, are important, we've.
Also Got you. Know recorded, video Yammer, actually helps us support this scalable enablement, in terms of be able to reach out to the community, we. Do deep dive virtual, live sessions so this is the other pieces it's, just instead of having just live sessions, in a conference room will do broadcast, live sessions, so we'll have 200-300, people on those at, a time we. Have virtual office hours so this was something was interesting, people would always ask our folks our folks are really good at what they do you, know for hey can you help me out with well again that's a one-on-one, meeting so, what we did is we actually fired up a live virtual. Office. Hours where people can call in ask questions, we get hundreds, of people on that now how does that work right, but. What you find is there's still a lot of people who just listen and benefit from that a lot of people have the same questions but enough, people have that access, to be able to ask you questions that they're okay with this so we just have a cadence once a week we have virtual office hours and that helps to redirect all the distractions, that you can get in terms of people one off asking you questions so. Again just another creative, way to be able to do it and I talked about training through suppliers and then. Ideally people go through a path one and then they go through adoption, so again, self-sufficient. Or. Through our preferred suppliers, and. Then also we're looking to be able to stand up an analyst as a service, so the concept, to be able to have if you don't have an analyst on your staff but you need kind of a partial, analyst or maybe, two and a half analysts, that, we be able to have a central offering within us where it's ready to go where you can just basically pay a small fee within. The company the business the. Business unit can do that and be able to get their immediate needs but what we're trying to do is look across all of this operation, and remove any of those barriers to be able to use it the, second path down there is that bi advisor you need a little bit more help so again we talked to you yet cetera and help you get frame up how you think about power bi how you use it and, then we will try to pass you off to the next stage the, key thing here is though that we learn from that like why, weren't you able to get there on your own right and then we drive that as feedback and innovation, to improve what we offer okay.
So, This is the bi at Microsoft, website I talked, about how we've invested, a lot in experiences, getting people up and started, so, you'll see here for instance. Information. About the products and we do this based upon personas. So, you know we have in Microsoft, a lot of stuff right a lot of things to talk about a lot of products we're getting better about simplifying, those experiences, but it's a lot for people to ingest so we, try to say you know is the business users user you don't want to intimidate them we show them what they need to know it's really focused on them, the. Business analyst yeah they're kind of a fulcrum to this they need to know a heck of a lot more so we provide them that information and we, also provide stuff that's not just power bi but within that whole bi space, bi. Professional. This is where we're getting a little bit more into the Cortana. Analytics suite and the thing we know from a self-service perspective, on bi is it's. Gonna be super cool that everybody can do self-service, but if the BI developers, are creating poor, cubes, poor, warehouses, with bad names bad metadata, it's gonna be hard for us to really get the full value out of self-service. Bi because you get an analyst in there who said hey I can rock and roll on power bi but. I don't understand what the heck this is that's, gonna at least slow things down if not impede things so we're, actually reaching out to the BI developers, to try to educate them, to think about okay now that you are no longer the one creating the reports will you understand what, this word, means and somebody. Else has to consume it in cell service you have to rethink how you design, so we're investing and be able to help build. That out. We've got services, in. Terms of this is our advisory, information, learning. Section I'll show you this in a sec use we've. Got examples, this gets into highlighting, some of the showcase information, community. Highlighting, different ways to be involved in that community all, the different Yammer groups that we have available and then, of course support. On the front page here you know we're blasting, you know key messages, we've, got information in terms of how, we can help getting. Started so again really, quick business user gets started, so I talked about the importance, of that we put that front and center make that a priority help. People understand where, they can get training how. Do they get help very quickly so, again helping. People get enable but if something doesn't quite go right or they have questions how do you get help what make that simple, and the other thing that we're dealing with and I'm sure you guys deal with is what's new you know, dang it the product group shifts things every month, it's. Like that things getting better every, month and, it's, you know occasionally. Occasionally. They change the UI and you know people need to help to process that that's that's more stable but you know that you also have situations where two months, ago somebody didn't like the product cuz it didn't do this it's. Now two months, and it does that how do you let them know right so what's, new is an important, thing in this new model and the product group is building some, of those notifications into, the experience, but they're. Definitely highlights, but how do you make available really for folks to say what's new and it's both kind of a touting of hey there's a drumbeat of cool things that are happening but, there's also hey that thing you needed is now available, so we try to make that front and center. From. A learning perspective so, let me just show you this. See. If this pulls. Up. Okay. So. This gets into guided. Learning by persona, so again we've, got the, concept of training catalog you'll see that here but that's not the first thing we take you to we take you through guide learnings, by persona, so we help you identify who are you so it goes again you want you want to find this stuff that's just the, right level to you there's a lot of Goldilocks, in, terms, of training so business. User versus, business analysts, and getting. Training on that so. Again we've got to get started section, and we, have a curriculum that we have help people walk through we tell them how long it's gonna be it's intimidating when you go into training it's like oh god that's gonna be three hours I don't have time for that right what are some of the bite-sized pieces we enable people to check off what they've taken give.
Ratings And feedback on that and then, we go from you'll notice I have get started then I have beginner we, think those two are different and, we, could be wrong but it works for us but. The, emphasis on here is again get started, has to be super, easy beginner you're actually kind of starting to dive into investing, but get started that needs to be that appetizer, where you can start to see that immediate value but, we do this across the different personas. From. A standpoint of you know what I view is probably, one of the most successful things for us to be able to get power, bi to be pervasive, across the company and used within meetings and everything is the, training part of it so, again again you. Know like I was talking to Jim or CIO yesterday, and it's like you know if I think I can think back the last three years and six months chunks, okay and the, conversations. That happen every, six months changed, first. Six months was what the heck is power bi right, I had to we had to win that we just had people to have to know people you know that we're in the hall could say hi I know power, bi is out there next six months was I'm curious about it right next six months I've got some people using anyway it's the conversation changes. And it can it can take six months chunks, to work through this you're. Like right now it's, everywhere, right and, so, that conversation is, just like in the last six months it's like it's the de facto now it's just kind of like you're soon to use power bi before it was still kind of like well you might use something different now it's it's pretty much de facto, I, think, for us going forward we've got to make it just even more industrial. Where it's just it's used on everything. The hardest, things that's, our opportunity. But my, point on this is to say that, getting people trained, getting more people just using it bubbling out there you you get your champions, using it and it just it hits that critical, mass point where.
Everybody. Just, knows that's that's, the, thing you use and, that's when really cool things happen all the internet-of-things things, that I talked about before your organization, now how is just the collective, team capability. And capacity be, able to chew, through those new data opportunities. So, do you think about how do you drive awareness how do you get people to go to the training use, the online resources, the product group is providing you give feedback on training that you guys need to that's the other piece let them know what training you need right because again that's probably one of the most important things you know five months ago the product was still getting shaped and formed there's a lot of feature gaps be. Thinking forward if you really want this to be pervasive what, are the things that you need to do in your organization to help people get trained, because the product is gonna be really cool like I can't even imagine six, months from now how cool it's gonna be and how easy it's gonna be but, help help, on that training aspect, of that because we need to help get your entire organization's. Bought in on that so, the last thing you, know just to summarize here like, I said usage, is key, it's. All about people using it to get the insights you've. Got to have new skill sets so start to think about again, within your worlds with NIT about, some of these marketing type of skill sets the training and always, think scale how do you scale more just constantly challenge yourself you don't have to stand it start off with like massive, scale but just every every week challenge yourself could we scale that more how can we scale more right, use some of these ideas that we have out here and then, ultimately it gets down to a culture, shift and, there's, different cultures, it's about using data culture but it's also IT letting, go of some things culture, changes, right so just, realize the culture shift is important and again patience. And persistence this this will take time but, it will pay off you. Know some of those stats that I had before talking about companies no, longer existing, in 10 20 years you. Don't want to be one of those right so, the, pay the investments, now to prevent, yourself from being that or to, help your companies become you, know one of those next great things.
Thank, You for watching for more information on this topic and other stories focus, on how Microsoft does IT please, visit microsoft.com/testlabguides.
2018-03-02 03:06
