Position Paper on Analytics Discovery Challenges

This position paper discusses the challenges associated with analytics discovery in business intelligence (BI) environments. It identifies a visibility problem rather than a volume problem, emphasizing that many reports and dashboards are underutilized or duplicated, leading to inefficiencies. The paper documents six patterns that contribute to the failure of analytics discovery at scale, such as the organization of content by tool rather than business function and the lack of signals indicating which content is valuable. It also critiques conventional volume-management approaches, explaining why they do not address the root causes of discovery issues. Furthermore, the paper proposes a framework consisting of five conditions necessary for making analytics content easily discoverable. These include creating a unified catalog across platforms, providing usage signals, and ensuring that governance metadata is visible at the point of discovery. The recommendations aim to enhance the overall effectiveness of analytics discovery processes within organizations.