I am involved in a lot of Power BI Governance projects, and one area I put a lot of focus on is empowering the users.
When we think Governance what likely comes to mind is:
- 🔐 Security
- 🏛️ Compliance
- 📗 Best Practices
- 🚪 Access
- 💫 Process
- 💼 Auditing
Not saying the above are not important, they are!
But, lets also think EMPOWER our users. Here are just a few things to consider:
🔵 Tenant Settings: When setting MS Fabric Tenant Settings, make sure you have someone involved that has the end-users in mind. This can quickly become a session of "let's lock everything down" in order to be safe. Wrong approach, we need to empower our users, within an environment where we set the relevant guardrails.
🔵 Upskilling: Have our users received the training they need for their specific persona type? For example some users will be focusing more on consuming reports, others will be authoring reports, others may be developing semantic models, and other groups may have multiple of these roles. Identify these personas, give the right level of training. In addition, what about some governance training, so users understand their responsibilities when it comes to how we should be using data.
🔵 Power BI Community Portal: This is crucial for empowering users, by providing a portal for support, knowledge sharing, and continuous engagement. It ensures that users have access to reliable answers and feel connected to the broader community. It promotes using Power BI in the right way. Also, by creating a sense of belonging and offering a portal of resources such as FAQs, started templates, guidelines, internal events, etc. users will navigate Power BI more effectively while easing the pressure on the core reporting team.
🔵 Self-Service: Have we established a clear path to enabling self-service? Locking down the data and giving no access to users is not a solution. This is especially the case if users are already use to creating their own reports in some form. With that said, I also don't believe simply giving full access to users without the right level of support and guidance. The point is, we must trust our users with data, we must democratise our data, but as I mentioned above, it should be done in an environment where we set the relevant guardrails.
🔵 Foster a Culture of Data Stewardship: While dedicated data stewards play a crucial role, it's important to promote a culture where all users are aware of data quality and governance to some extent. This goes back to what I said above, have we provided some level of training on this? It does not have to be complicated. Users should be encouraged to support by maintaining accuracy and integrity in their own work. This shared responsibility ensures that governance is integrated across the organisation.
🔵 User Feedback: Governance shouldn't be a one-way street. To empower users, we need to actively seek and incorporate their feedback into our governance processes. This means listening to the challenges they face, understanding their needs, and adapting our policies accordingly. We need to get the users onboard. By involving users in the governance conversation, we not only improve our governance framework but also make users feel valued and heard. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership and ensures that our governance strategies are both effective and user-friendly.
🔵 Power BI Centre of Excellence: In summary, the Power BI CoE helps organisations to progress on their Power BI adoption journey. I find that PBI CoEs vary in their definition, approach, structure and to me this is fine. What's key is that they are helping organisations further in their adoption by promoting and establishing an internal community, putting in place the relevant guardrails, promoting best-practices, empowering users and being more BUSINESS focused. One thing I would always call out when establishing a Power BI CoE, do not make this a place for data professionals to simply set rules. Yes, it should be driven by the core reporting team, but focused on the business. Starting off within members from a single team is usually a safe approach, but the true value comes when extending this to various business users.
To finish up, the success of our governance implementation and the adoption of Power BI hinges significantly on the end-users. It's so important that they view this as an opportunity that empowers and supports them, rather than just a set of restrictions and taking away things they previously had. By also focusing on their needs and fostering a collaborative environment, we ensure that our governance efforts are not only effective but also embraced by those who are integral to its success.