Part 3 of 3
In the first two articles of this series, I identified a situation called The BusinessObjects Brain Drain that is affecting all organizations that rely on the SAP BusinessObjects platform. In part two, we discussed what kinds of documentation you need from your SAP BusinessObjects administrators, whether they are in-house or outsourced, near-shore or off-shore. And in this final article, we want to discuss how you can motivate and retain competent staff to manage the platform.
It Takes Two…
The first best practice is to share responsibilities for the SAP BusinessObjects platform. Too often, inexperienced managers will “punish” one member of the team by making them the “legacy” person. Consider Spersonic (a BusinessObjects Board user) and their predicament.
I have been asked to be become the SME for BO Administration. No training will be provided so I am on my own to be the SME in 3 months.
from the BusinessObjects Board, post dated August 18, 2024
Spersonic goes on to wonder if they should accept the role or start looking for a new job.
On-going training and development
SAP quietly killed its certification programs for SAP BusinessObjects, but fortunately they recently introduced Learning Journeys. There are currently five Learning Journeys that cover the breadth of the SAP BusinessObjects platform.
Learning the Basics of SAP BI | SAP Learning
Discovering SAP Crystal Reports
Discovering SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
Creating SAP BusinessObjects Universes using the Information Design Tool
Managing SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
Exploring differences between SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.3 and 4.2 | SAP Learning
Allow Staff to Learn New Skills
Allow your staff to grow in the knowledge of the other technology platforms that power your analytics landscape. These skills could be related to cloud platforms like AWS or Azure, cloud data platforms like Databricks or Snowflake, or other analytics tools like Dataiku, ThoughtSpot or Tableau. It’s tempting to create isolated factories or silos based on tools, but that discourages innovation. A unified analytics team can weigh incoming requirements and choose the best technologies depending on goals and your own internal roadmap.
Your Thoughts?
What have I missed? How can you maintain SAP BusinessObjects as a business-critical platform and love your staff?
Resources
SAP Learning Journeys
