Continuing on our series on data culture, we’re examining the importance of having an executive sponsor. This is one of the least exciting success factors for implementing Power BI and getting more insights from more data to deliver more value to the business… but it’s also one of the most important factors.

Let’s check it out:

Ok, what did we just watch?

This video (and the series it’s part of) includes patterns for success I’ve observed as part of my role on the Power BI CAT team^[1]. and will complement the guidance being shared in the Power BI Adoption Framework.

The presence of an executive sponsor is one of the most significant factors for a successful data culture. An executive sponsor is:

• Someone in a position of authority who shares the goals having important business decisions driven by accurate and timely data
• A leader who can help remove barriers and make connections necessary to build enterprise data solutions
• A source of budgetary^[2] and organizational support for data initiatives

Without an executive sponsor, the organizational scope of the data culture is often limited by the visibility that departmental BI successes can achieve. The data culture will grow gradually and may eventually attract executive attention… or may not.

Without an executive sponsor, the lifetime of a data culture is often limited by the individuals involved. When key users move to new roles or take on new challenges and priorities, the solutions they’ve developed can struggle to find new owners.

Without an executive sponsor, all of the efforts you take to build and sustain a data culture in your organization will be harder, and will be more likely to fail.

Who is your executive sponsor?

Update: A Twitter conversation about this video sparked a follow-up post. You can check it out here: Tough Love in the data culture.

^[1] This is your periodic reminder that this is my personal blog, and all posts and opinions are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employer or my teenage children.

^[2] This aspect of sponsorship is a bigger deal than we’re going to cover in this post and video – organizations fund what’s important to them, and they don’t fund what’s not.