6 Key Traits Of Successful Mobile BI Teams by Kaan Turnali

6 Key Traits Of Successful Mobile BI Teams

If mobile BI solutions are going to enable organizations to drive growth and profitability, technology or technical know how alone won’t be the only ingredient for success. It starts with leadership and our team’s talent and passion will be the determining factor.

There’s no simple blueprint for success given the resource constraints and competing priorities that  mobile BI teams, like all IT teams, face. However, if you study successful mobile BI teams and how they make it happen, you‘ll quickly discover that they share many of the same traits. Here are six key ones.

1. They seek business value first

To me, business value first is a mindset that expresses human ingenuity with mobile BI technology and solutions. It must create business value with insight and answers to business questions with unmet needs. The business value first mentality begins by thinking outside the mobile device and is executed with strength that relies on a solid mobile BI strategy.

2. They chase perfection with user experience

When I think of chasing perfection, I think of collective passion that results in superior mobile BI user experience. And when we talk about passion, the first thing that comes to my mind is leadership by individual team members—regardless of one’s role, responsibility, and title—and their contributions to delivering that superior user experience. Passionate teams are keen to engage each day with an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to chase perfection, however elusive, because they know it brings them a little closer to excellence.

3. They seek beyond-technical expertise

They seek what lies beyond the subject matter expertise, whether it’s about technical skills with design and development roles, or business knowledge with less technical roles. They seek to build talent within their teams that can breed success, starting with critical thinking. They pursue a holistic approach that considers and deals with all competences that can impact the end-to-end mobile BI user experience—that aren’t strictly or necessarily technical.

4. They run with tenacity

More than anything, a successful mobile BI team runs with tenacity—they drive forward despite the challenges they face or the resources available to them in a mobile BI project or engagement. They know that there are best practices that they can follow. But they understand that in many cases they may be forced to solve unique business problems, which can’t be addressed using just standard templates. Their tenacity reflected in their passion and dedication becomes their key differentiator.

5. They seek value in integrated solutions

To realize the true value of mobile BI, they recognize the importance of integrated solutions where each part completes the user experience as a whole. They see mobile BI solutions as drivers of unique insights and experiences, and not just delivering data or hollow apps. They put a strong emphasis on how mobile BI solutions can help deliver actionable insight to drive growth and profitability. And not just for their customers, but for their customers’ customers. That’s how they drive innovation with mobile BI.

6. They innovate with customer focus

Last but not least, they design and execute with customer empathy. I often refer to it as the “empathy principle” in design thinking. They see mobile empathy as a prerequisite for customer-centric mobile BI products and solutions. They don’t just observe it from a distance; they live the experience as their users would. They seek to get frustrated just as their mobile BI users would do so they can understand the pain points. They look out from the inside, and not from the outside in.