The Head of Business Intelligence at a large German telecommunications company (cable network operator) left the company unexpectedly. At the same time, the company's IT department was undergoing extensive restructuring. The interim manager filled this gap at short notice as Interim Head of Business Intelligence.
At the time the assignment began, the division's IT was being reorganized as part of the international Technology & Innovation organization. This alone caused a great deal of unrest among the employees. In addition, two major projects were underway:
- A comprehensive multi-project program to set up a new enterprise data warehouse: The program, with a duration of 30 months, a scope of around 11,000 person-days and a budget of around EUR 4 million per year, required intensive management.
- In parallel, the company developed new market-oriented improvement initiatives (e.g. Revenue Recognition Policy, Next Best Practice). Revenue Recognition Policy, Next Best Offer / Next Best Action, Technician Platform, Finance Roadmap etc.), which created a strong need for new decision-supporting information & systems.
Staying staff and driving employee development
The interim manager was anchored in the Group CIO organization as Head of Business Intelligence / Data Warehouse. He managed the division with around 30 employees (75 percent of whom were external employees). Despite the general restructuring unrest, the existing employees were retained. The internal team even grew by 30 percent.
The interim manager used his BI organizational expertise to significantly advance employee development - and deployed employees in the right positions according to their skills. Those involved were able to optimize the workload and deputy rules themselves under the guidance of the interim manager.
New delivery manager introduced and successor trained
The interim manager also designed the new role of a delivery manager. He also assisted in filling this role and made a major contribution to the induction process. Ultimately, the interim manager was also responsible for recruiting his internal successor, who was found and trained by him.
Strict project planning with milestones for data warehouse implemented
At the same time, the interim manager took over the program management of the data warehouse initiative (newDWH initiative) with full budget responsibility. The large-scale project with more than 75 sub-projects and a good 30 employees had not been adequately managed until the start of the mandate. It was not possible to reliably evaluate the current progress or assess risks. The interim manager changed this by introducing stringent project planning with milestones and clear responsibilities through sub-project managers. He also used agile management methods. As a result, progress was now clearly recognizable - and the delivery reliability for planned milestones was noticeably increased.
Significantly improved management of external experts
75 percent of the employees in the data warehouse project were external experts who were seconded to the project via 2 suppliers. Some of these experts had developed a life of their own. Thanks to the new project management, the interim manager also involved these employees more closely again. In particular, he was able to build up a more trusting relationship with the sub-project managers and thus significantly improve the management of external colleagues.
Collaboration with new Business Intelligence Competence Center optimized
In the finance department, the company had set up a Business Intelligence Competence Center (BICC) as a CFO staff department at the same time. However, collaboration with the new BICC was initially very difficult. The interim manager therefore initiated a change project in collaboration with the head of the BICC and an external coach. This resulted in process models for requirements management, development processes and change requests, which optimized collaboration with the new Business Intelligence Competence Center.
