b) As a series of guidelines/rules /recommendations. This is a relatively new way of defining BI Governance. Traditionally IT has been solely responsible for defining the Architecture, Standards and Best Practices to follow in Business Intelligence, however as business starts realizing the significant impact that these decisions may have in BI Projects there has been a trend to make these topics part of the BI Governance process.

c) As the definition of roles and responsibilities for both IT and Business stakeholders. As Business Intelligence projects are by nature highly complex, establishing the proper interaction and outlining areas of responsibility between and IT and the Business becomes critical for a project to succeed.

Figure 1 - The three dimensions to BI Governance

UNDERSTANDING THE NEED FOR BI GOVERNANCE

Even despite the apparent benefits that implementing a properly defined BI Governance process can bring to the organization, there is still a significant number of companies in the market place who have yet to start similar efforts. When interviewing people from these companies, one of the most frequent reasons that they give to justify the inaction is the perception that implementing BI Governance is a costly and complex exercise that does not provide any value, as management has already decided which projects to execute first.