Post last updated: July 29, 2022
I’m really excited to share with you that there’s a new set of Power BI guidance called “Power BI Implementation Planning.”
There are two components to Power BI Implementation Planning:
Usage Scenarios: Diagrams to illustrate some of the most common Power BI usage scenarios.
Subject Areas: A series of subject areas that form the broader series. There will end up being somewhere around 20 of them. The goal is to provide the most important actions and decisions that are needed to implement Power BI.
In terms of scope of content, we’re just getting started - there will be LOTS and LOT more content to come. We’ll be iteratively publishing additions to this set of content as we get each subject area completed.
As with the Power BI Adoption Roadmap, I’m delighted to collaborate with Matthew Roche again from the Customer Advisory Team (CAT) at Microsoft. Alex Powers (also from CAT) and Peter Myers (MVP from Australia) are also involved. At the moment I’m do most of the writing; Matthew and Alex review & provide feedback & guidance; Peter handles the editing & content publishing. Chris Webb gets a shout out as well because as we publish more of the Power BI Implementation Planning content we’ll be migrating some content he wrote previously for the “Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment” whitepaper. (More on that in #2 below.)
Checklist of Key Decisions and Actions
The vision is to help customers with the most important actions and decisions that are needed to implement Power BI.
Keep an eye out for the icon and green check marks at the end of each section, throughout each article.
The checklist items are the main things that you want to focus on. The verbiage preceding each checklist is intended to help you with (a) why it’s relevant, and (b) links to more information.
Goals for Power BI Implementation Planning
The Power BI Implementation Planning will:
#1 Complement the Power BI Adoption Roadmap. Although the adoption roadmap has a wealth of great info, its main goal isn’t to tell you steps to get there—it’s more about success factors and things to think about to evolve your level of maturity. The adoption roadmap focuses mostly on harder things that are more difficult to manage than the technology itself (such as center of excellence, data culture, etc.). The actions and decisions we’re building in the new Power BI Implementation Planning guidance will serve as a bridge between the Power BI Adoption Roadmap and all of the great product documentation for Power BI that already exists.
#2 Replace the Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment whitepaper. The enterprise deployment whitepaper that I co-authored with Chris Webb has gone through 3 major revisions over the years. The latest version was from May 2020 so it’s greatly in need of updates. Given that it evolved to a document over 259 pages (!), that content wasn’t as easily discoverable, easily consumable, or easily referenced. We’re restructuring the content to fit what I described in #1 above and moving it online to the Docs platform (which will make it far easier to keep updated). The new structure will also be focused on making the content easier to reference and more actionable.
#3 Replace the older Power BI Adoption Framework. The older adoption framework (NOT to be confused with the newer adoption roadmap mentioned in #1 above) is a lightweight set of videos and presentation slides initially created by Manu Kanwarpal and Paul Henwood in the UK. It was a voluntary project they did to help share what they had learned from customer projects. The information was initially made available to help partners (usually consulting companies) implement Power BI more effectively for their customers. Since then, it has been made publicly available on GitHub, but hasn’t been updated anytime recently. We’re going to pull a few of the most relevant topics from this older framework into the new content so that (when it’s done) we’ll be able to definitively say that the Power BI Implementation Planning and Power BI Adoption Roadmap are the authoritative and current resources to use.
What are the Usage Scenarios?
Example of the “Managed Self-Service BI” usage scenario from Power BI Implementation Planning
The first thing we published under Power BI Implementation Planning are a few of the most common usage scenarios.
If you’re familiar with the older enterprise deployment whitepaper (discussed in #2 above), you might recognize some of the usage scenarios.
The usage scenarios are helpful because one person might think of Power BI as ABC, whereas someone else thinks of Power BI as XYZ. In reality, Power BI can be used in numerous different ways, even within a single department. Having an awareness of how you’re using Power BI helps you make informed decisions and communicate well with others.
The new usage scenario diagrams have gotten a big cosmetic overhaul. The main driver of the new numbering system is to meet accessibility requirements of the Docs platform (i.e., the numbers and text presented in the table underneath each diagram describes what’s in the diagram for people with vision impairments). In reality, that info is helpful for any reader. And articulating it that way also helps us make the diagram better.
Because each usage scenario now “stands alone” as its own web page that can be discovered all on its own via a web search, each scenario is described more completely than they were back in the older whitepaper. In the older enterprise deployment whitepaper, Chris and I decided not to be overly repetitive and verbose with the usage scenario descriptions. Now that each stands alone, each page is purposefully more complete without going overboard. Every possible little thing isn’t described — just the main focus for the particular scenario. We’re trying to balance thoroughness and brevity.
What’s Coming Next?
We’ll keep building out more of the subject areas for the entire Power BI Implementation Planning guidance. Just getting the first articles done was a major milestone, because we had to make a lot of decisions and create a pattern to follow.
Now that we’ve got our pattern…we can prioritize and continue iteratively releasing new pieces of content. This will take us several months to get everything done.
The new Power BI Implementation Planning guidance won’t be merely informational — it will help you plan, make decisions, and take action. I’m super excited to see this evolve over time. I hope you find it helpful as well.
Like this Content?
If you like the type of content that’s covered in the Power BI Adoption Roadmap and Power BI Implementation Planning, check out my Power BI Deployment & Governance training course.