Why should you engage outside consultants? Is starting an internal user group worth the time and effort? In this section, I outline the data landscape and how you can effectively use consultants.

Deploying Tableau—Lessons Learned

Whether you work in business, education, or government, your workplace is a complex machine with many moving parts, evolving goals, and internal politics. Successful deployments do not happen in a vacuum, nor do they follow a single formula for success. Leadership wants safety and innovation. Every data project the InterWorks team has been engaged in over the past 15 years has balanced these needs.

Unlike most technology solutions, Tableau’s ease-of-use and flexibility create grassroots demand. If you work in IT and you are planning a major Tableau deployment, it’s likely that many people outside of your group have been using Tableau Desktop before you learned about Tableau Software. It is also possible that your internal customers are demanding that you deploy Tableau’s products (Desktop and Server) so that more people can create and consume dashboards and workbooks. This makes your job easier. You don’t have to sell your users because they are selling you. The question is: How do you deploy Tableau Desktop and Server quickly, safely, and effectively?

Effective Use of Consultants

I spent many years purchasing technology, deploying solutions, and running businesses before I became a consultant. After trying to deploy technology without the help of consultants, I realized that consultants are a tool for getting to the right solution faster and with more safety. Bosses don’t like surprises, especially ones that cause delay and unanticipated expense. Careful consideration of your present data needs, team knowledge, and available capacity will drive the degree you employ outside resources, but you would be wise to utilize experienced and knowledgeable resources to augment your internal team.

Effective use of consultants for a Tableau deployment doesn’t normally mean farming out all the work. In addition to Tableau product knowledge and deployment experience, what other qualities should you be looking for?

Your Team’s Current Knowledge

InterWorks has provided consulting services for many of the most technically savvy companies in Silicon Valley and across many different industries worldwide. Technically adept companies are a significant part of our practice. Why? Based on my latest count, at least 250 data products are available today. It is impossible for a single entity to possess expert skill in every tool. These companies engage consulting help because they want predicable outcomes as quickly as possible. Consultants are used to augment their already capable teams due to existing project workloads and the desire to learn how the Tableau product stack works in real-world situations. Managers want their initial deployment to be done right.

There are many more entities (businesses, schools, government) that have limited IT resources. They have many of the same needs but don’t possess the budget to hire permanent staff. Consultants can be engaged to provide advice, training, project management, and even ongoing management.

What is your team’s present workload? How fast do you need to deploy? How many people will you need to train? What does your data landscape look like?

The Data Landscape

You have an existing data landscape. It may be the result of a carefully planned effort, but it is more likely that it evolved over time as your team grew and your needs changed. Your data landscape is a combination of the following:

• Data foundation: The software and hardware in place
• Data quality: The degree of your data’s accuracy
• Data governance: Security based on proprietary and legal requirements
• Data training: The desired versus current knowledge of team
• Data availability: The amount, timing, and quality of data you want to make available to your internal and external customers
• Data discovery: Your team’s ability to use data to create insight
• Data culture: Your company’s desire to base decisions on data versus gut feel

Your level of readiness in these areas will determine the type and number of outside resources you need to ensure a successful outcome. Major Tableau deployments are less about Tableau’s software and more about assessing your data foundation and the skill and knowledge of your team.

Experience has taught me that Tableau is always a useful addition to any company’s data landscape. Look for partners that have proven track records that can also provide relevant references. Industry-specific experience is less important than technical know-how, business acumen, and the ability to articulate technical topics in business terms.

After you have deployed Tableau, it’s wise to find an internal resource (a Tableau zealot) that is willing to run an internal user group. I also recommend getting involved with a Tableau User Group within your city. One of the best ways to broaden your knowledge of Tableau is to see how people in other industries are using Tableau.

The Tableau User Group at Cigna

Donna Costello is responsible for the Business Intelligence Center of Excellence (BI COE) at Cigna. She invited me to speak at one of Cigna’s internal user group meetings. I was so impressed with the Cigna team and the fun way they engaged their Tableau user base that I asked Donna to share how they manage their internal user group.

Taking Care of Vizness

Cigna is a global health service company that offers health, life, accident, dental, and disability insurance. Cigna uses Tableau as a tool to enable rapid analytics of big data. From the outset, Cigna’s Tableau users faced three major challenges common to many companies:

• Many of the users were new to Tableau.
• The users are geographically spread across the country.
• The users are separated across a diverse range of business segments.

In light of this, Tanya McNamar, Andrew Duncan, and Caitlin “CJ” Barry from Cigna’s Business Intelligence Solutions (BIS) Team created a monthly Tableau User Group (TUG). They designed the Cigna TUG to bring together twenty of Cigna’s Tableau users and provide them with the opportunity to learn and share visual analytics solutions by discussing best practices, hearing peer presentations, watching live demos, and communicating training needs. The Cigna TUG’s value lies in the combination of visual inspiration, skill development, and sense of community it brings to the business. Along with creating much of the early content, Andrew coined the TUG’s catchy mantra “Taking Care of VIZness.” Cigna applies these practices to initiate, sustain, and improve their use of Tableau and the organization of their user group.

Resourcing

The TUG is a partnership between all Tableau users in the company, the business, and IT, but there must be a dedicated TUG champion. BIS decided early to hand off ownership of the TUG to Donna Costello from their BI Center of Excellence (BI COE), who has maintained focus on the growth of user skills and the needs of the user base. The BI COE carefully organizes all TUG documents, from recordings to presentations to workbooks, in one intranet repository by date and general title of each session. The BI COE champion also tracks licensed users and regularly updates the attendee list to ensure new users will have support as they get started with Tableau.

Cadence

In an effort to have an organized and exciting session, the BI COE executes two planning sessions prior to the execution of every TUG, usually more than 30 days in advance. During planning, the BI COE meets with volunteers to discuss topics the volunteers would like to showcase. While there is often a long list of topics to select from, the BI COE focuses on two topics that the volunteers bring to the table. During this initial conversation, the TUG champion focuses on selecting the material and making sure the different showcases connect or flow properly at a high level. Exact details and perfect presentation are less important at this point. One month out, the BI COE emails a communication to the TUG audience with an agenda. One week out, the BI COE meets again with the volunteers to do a dry-run of the presentation. On the day prior to the TUG, the BI COE sends materials to the attendees in order to allow them the opportunity to consider any questions ahead of time.

Cigna conducts its TUG on the same day and time every month: the third Thursday of every month 1:00–2:00 p.m. At the conclusion of the TUG, the BI COE posts the recorded session and materials to the BI COE intranet site and sends an email to users with the posted location.

Format

The BI COE uses a standard suite of mediums and capabilities during its TUG, including WebEx, PowerPoint, Tableau, and Internet websites. The BI COE records each TUG using WebEx. These recordings are valuable for users who want to go back and re-watch techniques they saw or catch sessions that they missed. Each session starts off with a screen share of the PowerPoint slide deck, which primarily houses an agenda. The agenda regularly consists of the following:

• Welcome, presenter introductions, and agenda review (by the TUG champion)
• One or two dashboard showcases, techniques, tips, best practices, or user stories (usually 15–20 minutes for each volunteer or guest speaker)
• Enterprise updates such as performance or upgrades (by the Server Administrator or IT)
• Question and answer (from the audience)
• Group announcements (by the TUG champion)
• New resources (by the TUG champion)

Topics

The BI COE has found no shortage of topics to showcase. We have discovered that as time goes on, the topic options become more plentiful. Here are a few combinations of sessions conducted by the Cigna TUG:

• What is the Tableau User Group? The Tableau overview and the business segment dashboard demo.
• Business segment Tableau dashboard overview.
• Business segment Tableau case study and dynamic hierarchies in Tableau.
• Business segment dashboard showcase, training on row-level indicators.
• Dashboard sharing techniques, an overview of the recent Tableau upgrade.
• Visualizing JIRA data, blends, and joins in Tableau.
• Business segment dashboard showcase—Mapping techniques.
• Dashboard action techniques.
• Mapping and dual axis visualization training.
• Discovery tool demonstration and control chart creation.
• Guest Speaker—Tableau Zen Master Dan Murray, Tableau Adoption & Deployment.
• Tableau upgrade features.
• Business segment dashboard showcase, Tableau Public use cases, building a calendar and dashboard best practices with Story Points.
• Guest Speaker—Tableau Zen Master Joe Mako.
• Guest Speaker—Tableau Zen Master Mark Jackson.

Effectiveness and Attendance

Every quarter, the BI COE sends a survey to the attendees following a TUG session. Studies show that Monday morning is the optimal time to send a survey. In order to measure effectiveness, it is important to spend a significant amount time early on thinking through the questions you want to ask and keeping these consistent from quarter to quarter. The BI COE evaluates effectiveness based on the following survey questions:

1. What department do you work in?
2. How would you rate your overall knowledge or skill of Tableau?
3. Evaluate the following statements:
   • I will be able to apply the knowledge learned.
   • The content has been organized and is easy to follow.
   • The materials distributed afterwards were pertinent and useful.
   • Participation and interaction were encouraged.
   • Adequate time was provided for questions and discussion.
4. Please rate your overall satisfaction with the monthly Tableau User Group meeting.
5. Please rate your overall satisfaction with our Tableau User Group SharePoint Site.
6. Check three topics that interest you the most:
   1. Connecting to Data
   2. Advanced Tips and Tricks
   3. Table Calculations
   4. Structuring Your Data
   5. Working with Filters & Parameters
   6. Basic Maps and Geo-Coding
   7. Working with Multiple Data Sources
   8. Groupings, Hierarchies and Sets
   9. Visualization Basics
   10. Working with Trend and Reference Lines
   11. Creating Custom Calculated Fields
   12. Working with Different Chart Types
7. How important is Tableau to your department?
8. What projects have you worked on using Tableau?
9. Do you have further feedback that will help us better serve you?

Tracking Participation

The BI COE tracks month-to-month attendance trends by populating a Tableau dashboard with a post-TUG report from WebEx. The survey and attendance report are important pieces of data required to measure the TUG’s effectiveness and continue the skill growth of Cigna’s Tableau users.

Success

Using these practices, Cigna’s TUG grew from 20 members to more than 70 in a few months. They are building on this foundation with the goal of reaching 100 members in 2015. Cigna plans to introduce Tableau challenges as part of the Cigna Tableau User Group.