The role is under pressure
The traditional role of the BI Project Manager is under pressure. Changes in organizations are becoming a constant factor, and with change comes a different approach. Until recently it was important to write a good plan of action beforehand, but a scrum approach is becoming more popular in shaping the change. This demands different competencies from the BI Project Manager.
The future of the BI Project Manager
The role of the BI manager is crucial to successfully delivering BI Projects and managing stakeholder expectations. They have to be able to withstand pressure from the business to go for quick wins and short-term solutions, instead of the long-term goals. A challenging function that will remain important as we move into the future.
What do you have to pay attention to?
The most important things to pay attention to are:
- Which (new) skills should you expect from a BI Project Manager?
- Which tasks and responsibilities are part of this profile?
- How do you achieve more success, and how can you demonstrate this success, as a BI Project Manager?
- Which steps should you take to become or find a good BI Project Manager?
- How do you achieve more success using BI, both in the short and long term?
We’ll delve into these points below.
What skills should a BI Project Manager have?
The practical skills of a BI Project Manager are shifting from the hard to the soft side. The most important skills are:
- The ability to explain BI and the concept of the intelligent organization to everyone in the company.
- The ability to build bridges between the business and the technology sides.
- Knowing the interests of all stakeholders and the ability to reconcile them in the short and long term.
- They have to be able to independently craft project plans with a clear budget, planning, and deliverables.
- They’re able to describe the most important risks and take countermeasures.
- Maybe most importantly: they have to have extensive knowledge of BI and Big Data projects and how to successfully complete these projects. Having a good network is crucial.
On the technical side, so much is changing. Consider data warehouse automation, Big Data, Data Governance, and privacy and security regulation. Staying current in all these areas (business and ICT) is a challenge in its own right.
Why hire one of our BI Project Managers?
Our BI Project Managers have a wide range of experience in the field of business analytics and Big Data, having worked with many organizations. Passionned Group is on top of all the ongoing changes in the market and publishes many articles about these subjects. Because we’ve developed our own BI & Analytics Guide, and we’re 100% independent, we’re uniquely positioned in the marketplace. If you’re looking for an experienced BI Project manager, you’ve come to the right place.
An interim BI Project Manager within 24 hours
If you place a request with us, we do our best to reply within 24 hours. Then we’ll do a deep dive into your issues to determine the type of BI Project Manager you’re looking for to get the job done. We often suggest multiple candidates. If you choose one of our candidates, they can typically get started in your organization very quickly.
Because we’ve worked with many organizations, we know that a successful BI implementation usually isn’t determined by whatever software is used. An organization that’s capable and can adequately handle BI is at least as important. Passionned Group has extensive tooling and an analytics knowledge base that the interim BI Project Manager has access to.
We also make these tools and the knowledge base available to your organization. The combination of experience, independence, and tooling is what sets Passionned Group apart in the interim and consultancy market.
Related roles
✓ Interim BI manager
✓ CRM manager
✓ Business Consultant
✓ Chief Data Officer
How do you become a (better) BI Project Manager?
Business Intelligence is a rapidly developing field, and the demands placed on a good BI Project Manager are changing at a commensurate rate. Good BI Project Managers are a rare, and thus valuable, commodity.
If you want to develop yourself as a BI Project Manager, of course, you’ll want to read some trade literature. But is that enough? Passionned Group has also published various books in the fields of BI, Big Data, and continuous improvement.
If you really want to develop in these areas and know how to coach organizations through these changing times, you could also follow one of our highly-rated training courses. Passionned Group also offers (personal) coaching, organizational advice, and second opinions on ongoing BI Projects. Altogether, plenty of opportunities to improve and unite the worlds of business and technology.
Business Analytics that work for your organization
Business Analytics doesn’t just encompass the technical implementation of a BI solution, or unlocking new data sources. Data is becoming more of an asset, and it’s the organization’s job to learn to deal with these changes.
As a BI Project Manager, you have to be able to steer on time and money on the one hand. On the other hand, you have to show results. If expectations for the project are too high, it poses a great risk to the project.
Extremely long projects are becoming a thing of the past, and agile working seems to be the solution to everything. Unfortunately, reality is a different story, and the project manager doesn’t just have to make that clear, they also have to find the right solution for the organization.
Managing expectations
Our advice is to involve the business from the start of the project, and integrate an agile approach. Think about delivering dashboards and overviews, even if they aren’t completely finished and correct. It’s vital that the project manager creates the right expectations, in these cases. This is a challenge that every BI Project Manager faces these days.
Opening BI Project Manager
Passionned Group is looking for experienced project managers to help service its clients. If you’re such a candidate, and you see yourself in this profile, we’d love to talk to you. Leave us your contact information here, and we’ll contact you as soon as possible.
The trends BI Project Managers should know
On a technological level, changes are happening at a rapid clip. Also, more and more guidelines are being developed that BI solutions should adhere to. Important trends are:
- Data privacy and security: it’s increasingly important to consider data privacy and security measures. It’s becoming an integral part of BI Projects.
- The rise of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT): The rise of sensors that produce data out in the world is increasing, and so is the volume and complexity of data. Big Data solutions and the Internet of Things are making projects less and less predictable. The question is to what extent a project-based approach even fits these kinds of exploratory projects. This is changing the role of the project manager.
- Business Intelligence is democratizing: Self-service BI seems to be becoming the new norm. That’s changing the nature of the projects a BI project manager works on. Business employees are becoming a more integral part of the project.
- The amount of data sources and volume of data is growing explosively: Organizations are unlocking more and more (public) data sources. Where first it was primarily internal (process) data, now it goes without saying to also use client and market data. Cloud solutions are also becoming a new standard. That demands more cooperation with third parties. That makes BI projects much more complex than they were a few years ago.
- Continuous development versus project-based working: Agile development is becoming more and more embedded in organizations. A fine development in its own right, but the risk is that short-term solutions become the focus.
There’s more going on than this, of course. Project management as a field isn’t standing still. Quality is gauged by CBIP certification, and the BI project manager has to be able to switch between project-based and agile approaches. If you want to stay up on BI trends, take a look at our round-up of annual trends.
Contact us freely
If you’re interested in one of our courses, or if you want to hire one of our experienced managers, contact us. Passionned Group offers a wide range of possibilities as an independent agency. If you want to know more, feel free to contact us.
About Passionned Group
Passionned Group is a leading firm in designing and implementing Business Analytics. Our senior Data Scientists and consultants assist both large and small companies towards a smarter enterprise. Every two years we organize the Dutch BI & Data Science Award™. 
