The podcast episode

Per Kveim and Eivind Lofthus discussed how reporting can support decisions when numbers, experience and professional judgement must be considered together. They emphasised that reports should answer real management questions rather than reproduce everything available in the systems.

What this means for the organisation

A new analytics tool does not resolve unclear definitions or weak data. Management must agree on terms, time horizons and responsibility for quality. This also makes it possible to distinguish indicators that trigger action from those that merely provide context.

The conversation between Per Kveim and Eivind Lofthus described reporting as a connection between questions, data and action. An indicator supports management only when its definition, period and intended decision are understood. Experience and judgement remain relevant, but a documented data foundation can challenge them.

Microsoft’s Power BI adoption roadmap treats adoption as more than deploying a reporting tool and includes governance, ownership, skills and use. It supplies product-oriented context for the podcast’s management perspective. The conversation is the event source; the roadmap shows why shared definitions and responsibilities must accompany the technology.

A management-ready reporting set needs a named owner for each indicator, a defined refresh frequency and an explanation of exceptions. Recipients also need to know which action a signal may trigger. Usage data and decision records can show whether a report informs management rather than merely being opened.

Sources

Primary source: ProsessPilotene, “Fra data til beslutning: Ledelsens krav til innsikt og analyse,” 14 October 2024 (Norwegian).

Microsoft, Power BI adoption roadmap, first published in 2022.

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