My family is a foster family for cats and kittens from the cat shelter where we’ve adopted some of our own cats. Usually a litter will stay with us for a month or two, but it depends on the kittens themselves, and on external factors.
While the kittens are with us, it’s our responsibility to help them grow, both physically and socially. The experts at the shelter are always available if we need help, but for the most part we have the knowledge and tools we need to be successful. In many cases we’re their first real exposure to humans, and we can prepare them to be loving and playful members of a family. Just not our family.
Once the kittens are ready to be adopted, we take them to the shelter, where they will be carefully matched with their forever family. This last part is important – it’s hard enough to let go, and knowing that each of them will find a good home is what makes it possible.
It’s really the best of both worlds – kind of like managed self-service BI with Power BI.[1]
Not unlike fostering kittens, managed self-service BI can be the best of both worlds. As an analyst working in Power BI, you can often pick up projects when the scope is still small and manageable, and when you can have fun playing around with the data and seeing what it’s likely to become.
I’m emphasizing the “managed” in managed self-service BI, because it’s best to not be completely on your own. Having someone backing you up, someone with the expertise and resources to get you through challenging spots with a helping hand, is just as important with BI as it is with kittens. An author on his own may make avoidable mistakes with long-term consequences, but a center of excellence or community of practice can provide training up front, and assistance along the way so the finished self-service solution is ready to grow up – and growing up is an important goal.
Just as my family includes our adult cats, that analyst working in Power BI has a day job. If we kept each litter of kittens we foster, things would soon become messy and unmanageable. If an analyst retained ownership of every Power BI solution he developed, he would struggle to stay on top of his core priorities.
Being able to hand off a self-service solution to a central BI team is what gives this story a happy ending. The BI team can give the analyst’s work the long-term home it deserves, and the analyst can get back to his job… while also keeping an eye open for the next self-service BI challenge to come along and steal his heart.
[1] I hope you saw that one coming
[2] This footage of Tiny attacking my head didn’t fit into the Power Kittens video, but I shared it on Twitter because it was just too cute to not share.
BI Polar 