Measuring Organizational BI Skills – Ep. 255

BI teams usually don’t lack talent—they lack shared language for what “good” looks like.

In Ep. 255, Mike, Tommy, and Seth walk through how to measure organizational BI capability using a Power BI skills matrix. The goal isn’t to score people; it’s to make skills explicit so you can staff projects intentionally, reduce risk, and build repeatable growth paths.

News & Announcements

• Power BI Skills Matrix — A framework for listing the capabilities your BI practice needs (modeling, DAX, report design, governance, deployment) so gaps become visible.
• Build Power BI Skills — Ways to turn gaps into a plan (small projects, mentoring, and progressive skill ladders instead of random training).
• Represent Power BI Skills — A guide for describing skill levels clearly for hiring, coaching, and setting expectations.
• Suggest a podcast topic — Send an idea or question for a future episode.

Main Discussion

A “skills matrix” sounds corporate, but the mechanics are simple: list the skills your BI work actually requires, define levels with real examples, and use it to staff + coach intentionally.

That helps fix the most common failure mode: teams hire for “Power BI” and then discover too late that the missing skill wasn’t the tool—it was modeling, stakeholder work, release discipline, or performance tuning.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

• Split “Power BI buttons” from true BI competency: technical familiarity is useful, but business modeling and definition ownership are what make the work trustworthy.
• Define levels using observable outcomes: replace “advanced” labels with examples like “can explain filter context issues and fix a broken measure without guess-and-checking.”
• Cover the full delivery lifecycle: include data prep (Power Query), modeling, DAX, visualization, performance, refresh, deployment, and documentation.
• Use the matrix to reduce risk: it quickly surfaces single points of failure (only one person can troubleshoot refresh, relationships, or performance).
• Staff with complementary strengths: pair a strong modeler + a strong designer so the output is correct and readable.
• Turn gaps into specific practice work: assign a real deliverable that forces the next skill (e.g., write measures with iterators; document definitions; implement a deployment checklist).
• Treat governance as a skill, not a policy: naming conventions, certified models, and definition stewardship require capability—build it deliberately.

Looking Forward

Pick one role on your team, write down the next 2–3 skills to level up, and assign a project that forces those skills to be practiced in the open.

Episode Transcript

0:29 welcome back to another explicit measure explicit measures episode welcome back trying to use the words Tong got stuck to the explicit measures podcast my name is Mike and this oh sorry welcome back with Tommy Seth and Mike here we go jumping into our topic for today actually just getting I I got a quick opener here so I got you guys will get a kick out of this so the other day I was driving around with the family in the car and I had mentioned something in passing like da D oh yeah and I I was having some trouble with the website my

0:59 having some trouble with the website my website something along those lines like I I was fixing something on my website she and my daughter goes you have a website and I was like yeah like harbi tips and she’s like what and I was like yeah I have like a a lot of websites like multple websites she’s like you have multiple websites I was like yeah and and I’m just dying in the car I’m like thinking to myself

1:30 car I’m like thinking to myself how did you not know this you’re like 11 I’ve been talking about this for like and they and they tease me about powerbi tips they tease me about the podcast I think they only think I have a YouTube channel my no way so she’s like I didn’t even know you had a website yeah that’s pretty much the name like I said power. tips is the website address you go to the website She’s like I’ve never even gone gone there anyways oh man yeah I feel like

2:01 there anyways oh man yeah I feel like what is that a prophet in his own home is never taken seriously or something like that or mean to equate yourself to a profit is lock that’s a yeah not really but I’m just saying like you not really but I’m just saying like yes guy who created the website know yes guy who created the website even his own kids don’t understand he made the website like you can do that Dad yes yes I did your your family can always just they can always make you humble they they did they humbled me keep you humble keep you humble exactly right who how many followers you have on YouTube you have

2:32 followers you have on YouTube you have yeah yeah yeah whatever dad Meanwhile my son is like Dad how many followers you have yet have you have you hit them have you hit 100, 000 yet are you there yet Dad I’m like dude you just got to let it grow like you just can’t push it to the end like he’s like you’re so close but you’re not there yet like I know I’m checking it every day be quiet please I don’t want you to talk about it anymore making me stressed out anyways fun interactions with the kids and actually them learning learning that I actually do something other than sit in the basement and talk on the camera all

3:02 the basement and talk on the camera all day long so apparently I do other things than that that’s hilarious anyways good stuff so we’ll jump in topic for today Tommy give us our topic for today what’s our what’s our main topic here yeah so I feel like we’ve done this one in in a a lot of different lights but I think there’s I will always continue to hammer on this where when we’re looking not just at an individual right when when we’re thinking about where skills are what people

3:32 people know can I can hello why you’re laughing did you really just just started this segment I think we’ve done this one multiple multiple times oh it’s not a great day it I’m pretty sure there’s not gonna be anyone listening pretty sure there’s a new spin on this one yeah what’s what’s the topic though like before you start giving us what are we talk what’s the top what’s the main topic for about many times before we we’ve talked about skills and the idea of the skills right okay skills

4:03 the idea of the skills right okay skills Matrix yep what skills do you need for powerbi yes agree yeah skills yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah thing but I there’s a problem and I think we continue to have this where especially now with fabric where do those skills either expand and how much overlap is there and then is there a need to actually measure it okay okay so I’m with you so yeah let’s let’s add fabric into this Mex okay fine I think in general organizations have no bearing for what skills they have

4:36 bearing for what skills they have because and I think this topic really came from the amount of interactions I have with companies and then I listened to them how they talk about their people like what they’re what they’re talking about so let me give you an example I’ll walk into a conversation and I’ll I’ll be talking to the company you’re giving me head nods no I I said can I pause please please because I don’t think we’ve actually stated what it is we’re talking about yet oh yes yes yes we’re talking Seth give us the topic

5:06 yes we’re talking Seth give us the topic for today today today rewind to Tommy segue what are we talking about today Tommy today for the third time we’re talking about measuring organizational bi skills how do you measure intelligence School within an organization Sor back to you I I thought I said the topic okay good just didn’t want our follow listeners to be completely confused all one of them that are left now sure you are no matter what is to this so let me give an example of where

5:38 this so let me give an example of where I think there’s a disconnect between what organizations think they have versus what they actually have so an example of this would be you go on a phone call you’re say hey let’s talk about about powerbi who do you have building things inside your company and like oh yeah we have we have data models okay what is that or we have a data set okay can you explain to me what you mean by data set it’s in the warehouse are we talking about powerbi are you just talking about general terms or hey we’d like to we’d like

6:09 or hey we’d like to we’d like you to come do some training for us can you can you help us train some powerbi professionals or some Pro some Elite powerbi people yeah what do you want to do we want them to go to the website and build a web rep like we’re there’s there’s different degree there’s no bar there’s no measurement stick that I can put against this and say that’s not that’s not the level we’re talking about when you’re talking like powerbi professionals we’re thinking like you’re doing data modeling You’re Building reports You’re Building multiple Pages you’re doing like bookmarks fancy things

6:39 you’re doing like bookmarks fancy things like there’s different scales or lenses of what this looks like and I think sometimes when companies talk about their talent they don’t actually know what they’re measuring against and so when they say we need a powerbi developer what kind do you need a report Builder do you need a data modeler how do you measure that what skills do they need to be to be a level 100 a 300 or 500 in that category and I don’t think companies have a good way of measuring where they’re at so let me just pause there that’s that’s my thought just or they just don’t and I like I I want to be cautious here because I tend

7:11 want to be cautious here because I tend to agree with you however we’re not bashing people right the intent here is not to be negative not at all but on the flip side of that is this your negative comment even when we are interviewing for folks who should be powerbi professionals yes we still get people coming in that open the tool and say they know powerbi very well and and the reality is is like there’s a lot of it right so in an

7:42 like there’s a lot of it right so in an organization they but as you were describing that there’s buzzwords Mike Warehouse data warehouse is one of them data how do you build one of those again how powerbi incremental refresh what do you what do about powerbi yes everything really that yeah I can do I can do it all and Seth you and I have been very sneaky in some of these interviews when we’ve done some of these together we’ve

8:12 we’ve done some of these together we’ve said hey please rank yourself here here’s a topic let’s talk about’s this is really this is another telling thing that I think I found when doing interviews with people hey do you understand power cury yes I understand power C okay can you explain at a high level what is it there for and they usually do a great job here’s why I’d use it here’s it’s for the business user all these things a couple good bullet points I’m like great rank yourself and tell me out of out of a one out of seven seven being like the expert level and one being I’ve just

8:43 the expert level and one being I’ve just barely opened the tool tell me how you rank what what level are you in that space and you actually have them score themselves on a scale are you extremely competent or are you a basic user and usually what I find is they overvalue their rating yeah just just a since we seem to segue into interviewing people all the time which which I suppose is a good thing one of the adjust one of the adjustments I’ve made that’s been really powerful is I used to pick all the topics I wanted to talk about and have them rate themselves

9:14 talk about and have them rate themselves across those that Spectrum I don’t do that anymore oh interesting I take it section by section because after the first two for sure if they start at an eight or nine by the third one you tend to get down to reality because what happens and what most people don’t know is like when you rate yourself really really high you skip all the easy questions and we go right into the harder ones because like the point is is like if you’re interviewing somebody

9:46 like if you’re interviewing somebody well for a position I think you should have the same standard questions for every candidate provided they’re in the

9:54 every candidate provided they’re in the realm of where that candidate role would be more advanced questions for more for higher roles a little less Advanced for for Less because you’re trying to get an understanding of where they’re at you’re not going to dump the super Advanced questions at people who are like the junior bi position or something like that true but if they think very highly of themselves even after cautions they quickly realize that they’re in the realm that they don’t know and then they you start to get a I think start correct accurate measurement because at the same

10:25 accurate measurement because at the same time like they in an interview somebody’s trying to pull forward their best they want you to think tot sense etc etc and you’re combating a little bit of that and I think that’s that offsets it and brings it back into just a real conversation which is what anybody wants because we’re trying to get to know you trying to understand your skill sets and where you would plug into a team you don’t have to know everything right yes but I think I think what’s important in this part of the conversation is you’re G to have that in interviews you’re going to have that for people that have gotten through

10:55 people that have gotten through interviews call themselves bi powerbi professionals and yet if they were they wouldn’t be contacting you Mike for training right right so maybe they may use powerbi right but I think that’s where it is important as you go through this Journey of like understanding the bi skills within an organization can you measure folks or at least say hey here’s a skills Matrix where do you guys rate yourselves right

11:26 where do you guys rate yourselves right like and then have a follow-up or something right you can do this forums or quizzes or whatever the casee may be to level people up but I think it is it’s like it’s worthwhile especially if you have a lot of bi practitioners to figure out like which ones are your Champions which ones are better than others and and a measuring stick of some sort I think is something that is very useful as opposed to just taking people’s word for it I want to pick on your point there where does the measuring stick come from who defines

11:56 measuring stick come from who defines stick power bi. tips Matrix go there’s actually been I wrote I wrote skills Matrix long a long time ago yeah totally and we can paste that in the chat but there’s also been I think a revitalization of that conversation and so NJ Park who’s put one out recently I think there was another one I’ve seen where people are enhancing and building with new skill sets like so skills matrixes are

12:28 skill sets like so skills matrixes are great like from a individual perspective yes I think on a higher level as well you could probably use some of the like data literacy comparison things out the matrixes data camps got one I really like but that that covers a lot more than just people and it it leverages it dives into infrastructure also the people the tools and processes with and just what the organization is because there’s a lot of

12:58 organization is because there’s a lot of of components to whether or not like just whether or not business intelligence is going to operate well within your organization there’s a lot of components outside of just individual people skills correct thought Tommy did we pull you too far off topic here originally going you’ve been quiet what I’m yeah because I I’ve been actually really been going through this so maybe I did think of this question initially but how much are we measuring on the skills and I think that’s where we always seem to

13:29 think that’s where we always seem to focus yet that can be such a I don’t want to say like a catalyst for something failing but man if you just had someone take a standard test look at this data set but their ability especially in organizations where the the maturity is low or they’re just starting off it’s very hard Waters to navigate and it’s it’s not L it’s not like you’re like walking a tight rope and the dangers you just kind and the dangers you just are I’d agree

14:00 of are I’d agree yeah yeah I like it this way when I started learning powerbi what I build now is way different than when I started and I made a lot more mistakes right my power query steps had a lot more repeating steps right so it was almost like not that it’s not that I got lucky but it was more like I’m I’m like walking across a busy highway and I’m just happen to not get hit by any cars as I as I as I wander across the highway right and occasionally I build a report where oh no maybe I get bumped by

14:32 report where oh no maybe I get bumped by a car and that report gets run over because now it’s a total mess right the thing breaks I have to stop what I’m doing I’ve got to go fix it’s an emergency I’ve got to go fix something because again I wasn’t watching where I was walking right now that I’m a bit more seasoned in what I’ve built with parb I know where the pit pitfalls are right now I’m looking for like the crosswalks I’m now looking for like where waiting for the traffic to stop and then trying to cross there’s there’s certain steps that I’m doing now as a preemptive or a planning step that

15:02 as a preemptive or a planning step that I do more in front of my reports so that the output of my reports or the output that I’m building is more consistent and repeatable over time yeah I think Tommy you make a really good point because it’s the transition from in my mind a large organization with a lot like probably a higher data L data data literacy right where you have a lot of bi skills and you’re trying to figure out like who’s my creme D creme versus like who just says they are or hey you’re walking in and you’re gonna do a training for 50 people right like who’s

15:33 training for 50 people right like who’s who’s who how right yeah versus I think where what you bring up is is probably more ground floor you’re not going to throw tests or matrixes at people who don’t really haven’t done this stuff before or just dabbling correct so what I think I found that’s been probably very useful and by Nature I think you guys are just doing it is you start co- coding with people you co coild reports yes and and not only are you like

16:05 you like working yeah business people interaction right most of the time they know they know something about powerbi they at least know that there’s the powerbi desktop and how to start building something that’s hey hu huge on you you’re five minutes to wow yep but after one session you pretty much know where people are at and we talk about that in interviews like if if you could only do a practical interview like it’s says a lot about the skill levels of somebody Etc and I think one Co co- coding session is more than enough to

16:36 coding session is more than enough to evaluate the skill sets of somebody and Stack rank them in in what their abilities are or where you would need to to get them to be depending on what you’re trying to do with the organization I like your approach there Seth and I think that’s a really good way of like again I think we’re talking about data culture so other other some other techniques around this where things I think fit here maybe where where I’m trying to take some of the conversation is okay wait okay one you need someone on your team or someone

17:08 you need someone on your team or someone you hire or somewhere to assess the skills of the team right right because if you don’t so the challenge I think I see is we see I see managers showing up with the department and say well my team knows powerbi they told me they know powerbi well what do they know and so we don’t really have this Baseline consensus saying well why are we building one model to one report all over the place everyone’s doing it well obviously there’s a Miss we’re not trying to reuse is anyone using certified data sets no

17:38 is anyone using certified data sets no why are we not using that for your central bi team that that’s those are these are things that we think we would want to leverage as like best practices so to me I’m looking at it going okay you need someone to step into that situation and start saying okay I know some best practices let’s apply those and a great and a great place to start would be look at the powerbi adoption road map because that’s a lot of like there’s a lot of people-based things there’s a lot of process that you may or may not have and there’s a lot of Technology pieces that you’re not used to incorporating right so how how do we

18:08 to incorporating right so how how do we leverage that inside of organization so that’s a great starting point to measure your team against and if you haven’t even read that I I was talking with someone recently and they were like wow we have so many reports to our organization well tell me about the reports well they’re not using powerbi desktop what are you talking about you’re using powerbi but not powerbi desktop what’s going on they’re like oh yeah we’ve got like hundreds of reports I’m like they’re and they were describing to me we’re using a program like powerbi desktop it’s like no no no the other one the other one oh you’re

18:41 the other one the other one oh you’re talking about powerbi pageat report Builder you’re talking about powerbi report Builder yeah yeah yeah we using we’re using that so what had happened was everyone thought they were using powerbi but we were building a whole bunch of pageant reports and I was like let me ask you a question about your your let me ask let me ask you a question about your Tech stack are most of your bi developers coming from SSRS yes yes they are so they were so the idea we found powerbi we were able

19:11 the idea we found powerbi we were able to build someone built a cube published it and everyone’s like okay now we can build and publish and email out our reports directly from powerbi using all report Builder I was like oh this makes so much more sense now yeah and and so to me like they’re thinking like oh yeah that’s that’s ground zero like we’re good we know what we’re doing now but there’s like all these other areas of of influence that they’re missing right so they’re they’re not using certified data sets we’re not looking at like workspaces we’re just trying to pump out reports and get them in and email them to people

19:41 and get them in and email them to people I’m like that’s not really what I think we’re trying to do here we’re really trying to build some more self-service pieces so there’s like more conversations coming around how that’s

19:49 conversations coming around how that’s transforming their business now because now they actually like oh there’s a lot more of this world that we didn’t understand we didn’t even know that was there and so now the question is how do we take our existing people people identify the people that are strong and start educating them in the par desktop way and building reports and building other things that are also adding value to the business and I think that’s where my conversation comes from with this it’s where I think about right I got to know where I’m at and I got to figure out what to do to push me to the next level yeah

20:20 level yeah it’s man there’s there’s so much in there I think I think that speaks to the UN unbelievable value of this podcast I ultimately it’s driving at at the leaders like the one there are two points in here one is as you were speaking I think what’s really important is having is having someone that is managing people or or having a technical leader whether it’s the manager or at least in a technical lead role where they have influence over

20:52 lead role where they have influence over a team because just straight Management in a technical space you’re not going to get that get that to a lot of what you were describing yep the other the other part is even if you are a technical lead and you are thinking about strategy and implementation and all of the parts of powerbi that’s what speaks to things like I think this podcast or other things related to staying up to date staying up to date on what’s coming out there staying out up to date on like Fabric and what that all is entailing

21:22 Fabric and what that all is entailing because six months from now the conversations are going to be wildly different a different right and and I think so those two points resonate with me ve very large but it also drives to like a third point where you could be a technical person you could be keeping up to date but are you managing your day well and your team because that’s very difficult to do especially if you play multiple roles oh totally know this like you you you guys run your

21:52 know this like you you you guys run your own you’re your CEO your HR you’re you’re the developer you’re the architect you’re the you you play Tommy gets a lot of complaints from HR that’s I’ll just say that right now HR is constantly whining at talk about this so I think I think even even in recent conversations where one of not my pet peeps but I think one of the challenges is just to manage that in a day let alone a week yeah and I’ve one one of the methods I’ve done we we we

22:22 one of the methods I’ve done we we we talk about the the Practical parts of people wanting more practical things oh what’s some what can you do right now yeah one of the things I do or have found in terms of managing that is is separating out what my responsibilities are developers execute right that’s their job that we we create environments for them we create work items and all the requirements that they ever need and their job is to just knock it out but that is not your job as a manager or not your only job you could have a bunch of

22:54 your only job you could have a bunch of things to execute on a day but you also have to do all the planning right you have to plan the next Sprint you have to plan what’s coming up you Pro you may have more or bigger role than that which also dovetails into strategy are you always doing planning and strategy no but by separating these things out like execution is my bullet list it’s it’s the things that are coming in all day long every day and they get put into like my check I’m a checklist guy I’m a checklist like into my checklist what no then there’s there’s planning which is a

23:25 then there’s there’s planning which is a separate section and strategy which is the other and and having those in a place however you manage yourself is important to have it in in the realm of like it’s in the mixer so you’re consistently interjecting some of those longer term things with planning you’re consistently integrating things like strategy and and that’s how you maintain to some degree I think the business requirements and needs on you and your team and and

23:56 needs on you and your team and and individual versus like how you go about implementing powerbi are you do everything about it right powerbi we’re bam came in we’re going to we’re going to use it would 15 minutes of searching about powerbi lead you down the road to make you understand that paginated is not the only thing it can do just saying it may or may not right May so it’s like it’s those things I think that are important to as you level up in any realm it becomes like it

24:27 up in any realm it becomes like it should become more more ingrained in you because you’re you’re making bigger decisions and you’re leading teams and leading people which I think plays a lot into measuring organizational skills within an organization because you have more of that influence or you should have more influence so maybe the point here here is can you measure organizational bi skills with the leaders running

24:58 bi your your question begs another point that I’m thinking about here is how can you lead if you don’t know where you’re going right if you’re a leader of a powerbi department you need to be talking with other leaders of other powerbi departments right how am I you can go on you can go online and read them or you can learn all this yourself but you also should be talking with other people who are doing what you’re doing yeah right if I’m a developer of PBI I’m learning from Daniel Marsh Patrick on how to do better denb I’m learning from Tommy how to do whatever

25:29 learning from Tommy how to do whatever Tommy does whenever he does things in powerbi I got to learn something from him because he’s doing all these crazy like he’s million he’s like Milli millions of notebooks and like look I got these power shell scripts I got all these power automates going so I got to look at Tommy and what he’s doing and like learn from him I got to learn from Seth like how are you doing planning and strategy like I feel like I’m always trying to find other people that are in the same Realms that I’m dealing with and making sure that I learn from them because I realize I don’t know everything I I can know a lot of things I can put a lot of pieces together but I

25:59 I can put a lot of pieces together but I need other people to help along with that and that goes for a leader of parbi it also goes for the developers too right that’s why I follow all these people on right LinkedIn and stuff I would never be a better report Builder if I never saw Miguel Myers blow my socks off with his reports in our user group it pushed me to think more like I was I my little mind did not fathom what this report should look like Armen Armen

26:29 Armen Armen and I don’t know Arman he’s a guy on LinkedIn yeah knocks my socks off he’s he’s crazy good with his reports his reports are I can’t even I when I look at a report I’m like what are they what visuals are they even using to make this happen I know I’m looking at something good for real and that’s where I’m like I need I want more of that I need to learn what they’re doing so I can figure out how do I I need to learn it and then I figure out how to apply it but you’re always trying to seek out those people that are better than you and I think

26:59 that are better than you and I think that’s important and if you’re building a data culture from a leadership standpoint you need to bring people to your organization who know more than your people do or you need to push your people out into the world and say go find time to figure this stuff out well or or or even provide that right like and it what you’re saying to me speaks a lot about Community whether that’s one that you build within within your organization and that I think is one of the the best things you can do which I look forward to doing is is building a

27:29 look forward to doing is is building a culture of having a community of people that learn you’re opening the doors and you can bring more people and level them up but at the same time like it’s Community is such a huge factor in sharing ideas like you’re talking about Mike and learning from other people yeah to to absorb all of the things and we had this conversation related to a specific area right like where I I definitely used to be the person I was like I can do that I yeah

28:00 person I was like I can do that I yeah it’s not I can do that I could I could figure that out Y and and eventually you realize yes you could with the amount of time it would take that person who spent two years doing it and and making all the mistakes and perfecting their craft and doing all that giving you the shortcut right that is why you pay for trainings or skills or whatever exactly right and now like you can level up quickly because people are going through that very long Pro process in make in doing trainings we

28:31 process in make in doing trainings we just we just give it for free on the podcast that’s what anyway I keep plugging us which is good I suppose it’s funny that you’re plugging us the channel like they’re already list why why why because I we’ve we’ve talked about this as well I find immense value in these conversations oh I do 100% all the time in the chats that that are coming through and different perspectives and I think that’s what the value of creating or leveling up skills within an organization related to business

29:01 organization related to business intelligence starts with having conversations like that all the time and the more you can have them the better off you are so bringing those into you off you are so bringing those into an organization is even better but know an organization is even better but like it’s the community aspect are people engaging with it outside of the community is a huge indicator of their of their current skills and their learning mentality but it’s also like I think something leaders can do within an organization to increase the skills skills what do you think we’ve been quiet here Ive not letting you talk

29:31 quiet here Ive not letting you talk enough here but give us some thoughts from from Tommy it’s late we’re all doing fine honestly the the biggest thing is I I’ve been going through this and how can you actually when measure that like we’re

29:45 actually when measure that like we’re saying oh yes they need to learn there still needs to be something that they’re going to be at least to say is that person good at what they’re doing to bring people along right because someone you may have say someone has Charisma but they don’t follow through I don’t want to get too outside the scope here but if we’re talking about measuring the organizational bi skills like I need to know that I’m G to trust this person to do X Y and Z and I don’t think we should measure that I don’t know if we should measure that because honestly a lot of organizations don’t

30:16 honestly a lot of organizations don’t really even focus on their their own team doing that but there’s something to be said in terms of I’m looking for that skill in a very specific way when I’m looking for someone to be the champion like there are a few and I hate to do the old baseball Scout where you just know when you see it but you are looking for that person who’s always wanting to learn like you want to see that passionate person even Microsoft’s documentation says that find someone who’s passionate and not saying

30:48 who’s passionate and not saying that’s a be all end all but I I thought it was very interesting they use something so subjective in the adoption framework but it’s true and it’s really true in terms of there may you can’t measure passion I don’t think so but it’s important that things that you are looking out I think there are signs of where passion comes from if you couldn’t if you couldn’t measure passion you would not have a Microsoft MVP program period I think the people who are doing Microsoft MVP are

31:18 people who are doing Microsoft MVP are passionate about what they were doing and I think if you talk to a lot of MVPs they’d still be a community contributor with or without Microsoft’s vote of MVP yeah right if if Microsoft said Michael you’re talking bananas here you’re done like you’re done you’re done graduated you graduated as an MVP you’re done you’re out if they told me you’re out I would still be doing the same Community things I’d be doing now because I just enjoy it so I don’t think you see everyday employees and again I’m

31:49 see everyday employees and again I’m talk I’m going to speak for me myself because I can’t speak for everyone’s passion and what they’re good like what they love to do right I would work nine to5 do the work thing and then I would spend the evenings and extra time going back into the tool and figuring things out I built an entire website on the in nights and weekends around parb at tips just because I wanted to share with what I was doing so I I took initiative to go above and beyond my daily workflow

32:22 above and beyond my daily workflow knowing that if I spent time learning this stuff I could be more effective I could more value and there’s there’s a there’s a message I’ve heard in cult in companies that is just a very it’s a very very strong it’s like throwing water on the fire right when I start hearing people say I don’t have time to learn something new yeah and therefore I just continue to do what I’ve been doing in Excel or whatever we’re not slowing down to say

32:53 whatever we’re not slowing down to say is there a better way and to me that just goes against every thread in my body of like I don’t have threads but every bone in my body let’s try that every bone in my body let’s not mix analogies here but every bone in my body tells me if there’s a better way I want to focus on trying to build the better mouse trap Build The Better thing so I could be faster more efficient I like doing that I enjoy efficiency and so I don’t know that that was my my statement to what you were saying there Tommy but I I do want to come back to

33:25 Tommy but I I do want to come back to your your comment there Tommy like you mentioned the power Champion I I think I think if you asked a number of people in different businesses at different skill levels what is a powerbi champion they would have drastically different definitions of that so let’s let’s do an experiment now Tommy how would you define a powerbi champion what what are what are what are three what are three characteristics that you would don’t don’t even like have do what are three characteristics of saying if I saw these three things

33:56 of saying if I saw these three things you would likely be a powerbi champion okay never mind I see I thought you were going another Direction with that I’m like okay but no I think one would be immense the immense skill that they have in powerbi it’s well known they’re the person that people go to or have always gone to about data questions or sometimes just even computer questions where they either go to person and they’re always helping out number two it is that seeing that passion where you get that random teams message like did you see the new update

34:28 did you see the new update or or having the conversation like what can this do and they’re talking to other people about like oh do there’s bookmarks and just spreading the word and I think three they’re sharp and they’re incredibly sharp and they have had a conversation or that passion is coming from not just their own skill set but seeing what the impact it can do so they want to have an active leadership role how would you define parbi champion Seth

34:58 Seth I’m having a hard time equating what I first heard you say Tommy which is like evaluating people on skills and how passion plays such an important role in that and then we start talking about like the people that you’re looking for in a or and you go almost to the opposite end of the spectrum saying they’re the best at it and they’re the sharpest passion’s part of it but the other two key things you had in there are like they’re they’re already well on their own journey of learning powerbi

35:30 their own journey of learning powerbi and to me those like are completely disconnected because passion without the skill set is probably the vast majority of what you have to draw from as opposed to especially in smaller M mediumsized orgs where you interesting so I’m I’m a little disconnected right there did I misunderstand no I I well that’s what I said at the end where honestly a lot of organizations don’t measure soft skills regardless and I was even saying the things as I was saying like as

36:03 the things as I was saying like as much as we would want to measure this to see it like the impact I don’t know if it’s possible and and that’s why I said sometimes you just know if someone has it obviously you would see the only thing you would focus on was what they are doing in powerbi but I don’t think you can measure the the passion no absolutely not I’m not saying that right like what where I get hung up is on the skill sets because I don’t expect technically is a does a powerbi champion have to be the best as it relates to skill sets like are we are we are they

36:34 skill sets like are we are we are they teaching the business unit are they the ones that are out there promoting promoting what’s their job promote the use of of business intelligence and powerbi or is it to be the technical Experts of the organization or both and that’s a great that is a great point I wouldn’t necessarily I’m asking for like your definition of the champion I would definitely say that to your they wouldn’t have to be the smartest powerbi developer in the room okay because

37:05 developer in the room okay because in to answer your question Mike initially my levels of expectation throughout I I think younger orgs is is not going to rely heavily on the technical expertise that is what my team is for what what I would be looking for are people that have already shown enthusiasm for for powerbi right they’re they’re they’re trying to use it already right they have a learning

37:35 already right they have a learning mentality where I can engage with them and they learn or a team member can engage with them and they don’t make like the big mistakes or they’re solving their own problems and the ability to execute if you’re going to engage if we’re going to identify you as an individual that is I think we’re going to level you up right in an organization it’s it’s that hey if if you’re requesting help and we help you but we need something from you are you giving that to me the next day or is it a week from now or two weeks from now

38:07 it a week from now or two weeks from now because you’re you’re too busy and I think that speaks a lot to somebody who wants to learn or really engage in a new technology or a new something where their enthusiasm is driving a lot of their efforts which will just continue to build in that powerbi realm and they’ll become stronger and stronger in solving the data problems for their business unit and my team is there to help engage them further and get them deeper engaged in the tool set so that

38:38 deeper engaged in the tool set so that they become more advanced and that’s where I think skills matrixes are a good thing because they finally get into a realm where like okay well in your business unit what are the biggest things you see why don’t you focus here on these leveling up these skill sets as opposed to trying to boil the o I so did you give me three things that you were thinking about like so if you had identify learning mentality ability to execute earning okay

39:08 to execute earning okay okay I oh man I’m so I’m digesting all these things there’s a lot there’s a lot to unpack here okay so here’s where my head goes on where I think my powerbi Champion or how I would identify them in my company in the in the powerbi admin portal and again not everyone has this but you can go in there and there’s now a report that’s called feature usage that’s inside the admin monitoring portal when you go in there they have a

39:40 portal when you go in there they have a I think it’s called the it’s the decision tree it’s the it’s the the decomposition tree you can build a decomposition tree and what I’ve been exploring recently especially with organizations is once they have this open we can go into that report and we can first report let’s just count the number of activities per person right here’s your email address let’s see which user even just all the activities that are happening your power which users have the highest amount of activities so I think a powerbi champion is one of those users that have a higher

40:11 is one of those users that have a higher amount of activities in powerbi. com purely measurable you can literally say these are your people these are the people that are that are producing the most activities now Champions might also have a higher mix of report creation or data engineering or data building activities as opposed to a user who comes in and just views a lot of reports right you may have a user just comes in and Views a lot of stuff right so I would also put Priority on on that as well and so from my perspective

40:42 that as well and so from my perspective one of my things would be is engaged with power. com right they’re providing they’re interacting with it a lot enough so that we see their actions bubble up to the higher part of my company those are the people that I think I want to engage with right away and figure out what they’re doing and how can I help them because if they’re doing so much engagement with pb. com they’re likely going to be helping other people or other people know they’re doing a lot in powerbi already so that’s a good place to place to start another area here is I think a

41:12 start another area here is I think a champion is asking their admins for more control more features more workspaces so another area or data point you could put on here is which users are hitting up the help desk to ask for things where are those coming from are you getting powerbi related requests or or asks or questions that are coming to to some help center to me that’s another measure of that would be a good champion and Tommy to your last point right you just know and someone’s like a harbi you

41:44 just know and someone’s like a harbi you just know right I do think there’s some quantitative things you could do to make sure that you can confirm that but what I would say is there’s nothing so telling as saying here’s a sample data set it’s very simple it’s a star schema okay I’m going to give you the data set just show me what you like let’s let’s to your point SE earlier let’s peer develop right I’m going to start I’m going to ask you to build a couple things just try and make some things happen right if I can just watch

42:14 things happen right if I can just watch you move your mouse around the desktop I already can know if you’re familiar with the application because if I say make a measure and your cursor fumbles around where to go find to make a measure and you don’t immediately go to the table right click make measure or go to the like there’s many places you can do it as long as where to go to make that thing happen to me that tells a lot about like your experience in the tool and and that would be like I really look for those in in people and when someone’s having problems I really like them

42:44 having problems I really like them driving because it it really tells me even when they ask for help hey I can’t do this thing I can’t make this measure okay great show me your screen and then I start not barking up commands but say okay open the data model can’t do that okay go find this icon go over here click this thing like if I have to narrate you through I know you haven’t spend enough time in the tool and to me that’s like that’s not a champion I’m looking for someone who knows how to just jump through the hoops and knows where again it’s less pressure if you’re just co-developing

43:14 you’re just co-developing together yeah I think there’s one caveat to there which would be occasionally now pulling pulling some folks in and saying like hey I I need you to make this Visual and change this property and then going I just I don’t know how to do that anymore like oh you must be an old school Power V well anymore now I don’t know I don’t know where it is like I used to how do you make a visual I don’t even know how do you how do you get a visual pageb

43:45 do you how do you get a visual pageb Ribbon or is it a button or do I right click I don’t know properties you have I don’t don’t yes I I do I do feel like the the new on visual editing is interesting but it definitely has it has level set everyone again we we’re all back down to Ground Zero again and figuring out how to build visuals from scratch we went we went really basic here and it it pulled me back here a little bit I do like your measurement like you you were very measurement focused in your criteria you lost me like you just know like wow

44:16 lost me like you just know like wow there you go there’s the canyon of yeah no no ambiguity I appreciate that very specific measure very specific measure well it’s just no well and I I was I was trying I was trying to throw I was trying to throw a bit of a bone here because I was like you just know because I’ve watched you I’ve peer developed with you right there there is a you You observe what’s happening so that’s more of the fuzzy one to me right can you can you watch like have they given you a report that looks good have they when you peer develop with them are they are they showing you things that are more

44:46 they showing you things that are more complicated like if this person’s whipping out bookmarks and switching visuals on bookmarks okay I know we’ve got some more skills here right that to me that indicates that they’re a bit above an average user I like you’re an advanced user if you’re doing that stuff like realistically like you don’t have I would say more often than not Mo you’re going to lose you’re going to lose straight business people by dumping in a sample data set like if you can use their data which they know very well yep

45:16 their data which they know very well yep I think they succeed and they would be able to show you the technical skills that they’ve learned while building things for their data set oh I would say I would say look at their power query steps you can you can tell a lot by how many how many steps exist in power absolutely can did they use power query above and beyond just right are they are they trying to do everything in Dax everything that’s another good point too did they create relationships between the tables that they what

45:46 the tables that they what relationships right are they bir directional are they like many to many like what’s going on also like indicat quickly pretty quickly by looking at their decks I have some I have a really complicated back thing I figured out from online from chat GPT yeah okay show me what show me it 20 lines long like yes yes exactly yes oh these are really good points so you just you just know that that’s what you just that’s those are the things you just know but this is my point with this whole conversation is the whole point of this is if you don’t

46:17 the whole point of this is if you don’t know what you’re looking for you have no way to measure them right we know these things we’ve gotten stuck on these problems we’ve done we’ve done the hard work and like we stuck like we know not to do it that way because we’ve done six seven different problems that way and it didn’t didn’t work so like that’s that’s this is where I feel like there needs to be a better solution around okay as someone who doesn’t is not a powerb expert how can I get get the the gauge right I feel so if you if

46:47 the the gauge right I feel so if you if you become like a a statistics black belt right there’s a standard there there is a there’s a program that you can go through and and if you are a black balk in statistics you’ve taken these kinds of courses these kinds of things and when you leave you should be able to answer these kinds of questions I feel like we need something like that for powerbi because not we can’t assume every manager of powerbi understands the entirety of powerbi and can accurately gauge the

47:17 powerbi and can accurately gauge the skills of their team one other thing I’ll throw out here too just one other comment I might be shifting gears a little bit right let’s just say you’ve been able to gauge your company and let’s say you’re you want to educate more the next question I think is what have you guys found as far as what techniques work to start engaging people and getting them to start upscaling to the next level what does that look like for you like is there any techniques that you’ve done to

47:48 there any techniques that you’ve done to help push people over that edge so they either start learning themselves or the skill of the team starts increasing any thoughts around that one I really like that question it’s honestly it’s consistency that I’ve seen is regardless of the practice obviously there’s some practice better than others but it’s starting early and staying true to how you’re doing training or how you’re communicating to people and eventually kind people either see the

48:19 eventually kind people either see the value or they’re going to come to you where they know where to go there’s not really like one thing I think you can do for the majority people where you’re just going to wow them away and there’s going to be this lightning bolt that I don’t think that generally is going to happen to the the general larger team what do you do like what are the actions like hey we’ve identified Mike he’s at the company he’s just using powerbi. com to build a couple report Pages couple matrixes couple tables and then he exports them right okay we know where

48:49 exports them right okay we know where he’s at what what do you do to engage that that user like they want to learn they want to do more what do you do what what is what is the weekly or monthly thing that you do or have done that pushes that person to the next level dude it it is it is me finding whoever my bosses and letting them know look how amazing this is I just connected to this while we’re going to spend time it’s theirs is just making the time argument in terms of like do how much time I’m saying right

49:20 how much time I’m saying right now but you you may not have the luxury of being able to talk to like a vice president or someone in the sea level but if you’re just showcasing to it with if you’re already doing bi and you’re trying to get people on board stay

49:32 trying to get people on board stay consistent with asking for a request make yourself busy and then keep showing your your your superiors on what value this is already bringing how much time is already maybe I misspoke my question there I’m I’m not thinking about the relationship of me the individual right I’m thinking about me the organization right me the company right I’m a lead of a powerbi team and we have many people on the team all at different skill levels yeah so beond the team right or more to the business team yes okay so let me give

50:03 business team yes okay so let me give you one example that I think works pretty well I think having a leader communicate hey we’re we’re putting together a program around training and education for people in powerbi and bringing in experts or looking at what you have and encouraging your experts to communicate on a bonly or monthly Cadence where the the leaders or the technical leads of your powerbi environment are showing up and saying hey did this hey did

50:34 hey did this hey did this and I and I do think because powerbi changes so fast I think having an intercompany meeting at least once a month even for 30 minutes to an hour once a month is really relevant if nothing else to go over the new features of powerbi. com right there’s going to be new icons showing up they’re adding new features what are the new things that are coming down the visual new visuals new visuals like there’s new visuals showing up like there’s actually literally brand new visuals and how how do you use them has anyone spent the time to go did you could do

51:04 time to go did you could do this now with these new visuals so I think there’s a that there’s an investment that I think that needs to be made at the leadership level that actually commits to we will spend real people’s time to educate them and it may not be a big meeting but there needs to be some be some investment from a Time standpoint Tom like you were saying right we’ve got to commit some time a lunch and learn free food whatever that is get people there and then start talking about powerbi with them and then if you continually

51:34 with them and then if you continually add value in those conversations they come back that’s what that’s why light that’s why power user group showed up well and I think like that speaks to building your a community in your organization right you do that around providing valuable information in condensed ways or training opportunities or Etc especially if it’s during company time right but I I I think there’s like there’s three things that stand out to me in that in that question as well one is are you as an organization

52:05 one is are you as an organization opening up opportunities for people to be creative in solving business problems po power like understanding data and how to manipulate it and merge it and put it together in powerbi to solve business problems is one of the strongest skills of a bi practitioner and for a business user learning them is invaluable right so yes but I think a lot of the times they don’t know that it’s there or they’re not encouraged to go figure out

52:35 they’re not encouraged to go figure out how like there’s this there’s this big problem we have you’re so close to the weeds you may have the solution that none of your other people know or you have a unique approach and yeah you can go do it the other is like from the leading aspect for people on the team but especially externally to business units I think it’s really important to Tommy’s point to be consistent in in letting them know that you’re there being an Unblocker for them right like one the most frustrating things and you guys all know this as well when you’re

53:06 guys all know this as well when you’re in learning Dax my God that can be so frustrating when you’re like you’re just stuck and you just need this measure and you’re you’ve spent an hour or two on it you can’t figure it out unblocking people walking them through the Sol here this is how this works y y whatever and then they move on but the caveat there is not being the Easy Easy Button I want you to hurt a little bit because it’s through that pain that you learn Lear it’s it you don’t learn when

53:37 learn Lear it’s it you don’t learn when you just come to me and we’re just solving all your problems and you’re not going to skill up if people don’t work through those challenges and start to figure things out for themselves and then like I think the most important one along with like solving the business problems is as Leaders or managers if people are doing that promote the solution and provide recognition to those people the higher up that recognition goes the more they’re going to be innately driven to keep solving those problems for you there’s there’s a

54:09 those problems for you there’s there’s a carrot stick here it’s not just hey I get a lot of satisfaction out of learning these skills people who are driven or going through the efforts to learn engage more provide more value to the business recognize them there should be like a value string on the other end of that that goes above and beyond just like H I’m just I’m just going to learn this to learn it and it’s fun it may be that’s true but a big motivator can be oh my gosh like I did this stuff my manager passed it up and the director

54:40 manager passed it up and the director now knows that like I have this report and now I can share it and we’re going to build on it and then we’re going to iterate because it’s solving these problems and there’s a lot of value that can come out of this organic work otherwise we wouldn’t be pushing A lot of that organic data l and all this within an organization if there wasn’t value for the organization that everybody was leveling up and making better and better and better decisions because that’s what we can do I really like that that’s really good trying to think there’s anything

55:11 good trying to think there’s anything else so be consistent was a good one I think I threw in there I’m just taking notes here so I can like use this later in my Consulting schedule schedule monthly meetings write that down schedule monthly meetings but you have to be the e button I am the Easy Button of well it’s as I would say this as a consultant sometimes you want to be the Easy Button yeah but of but sometimes also you walk into really stupid designs and you’re like this is just junk you need to throw

55:42 like this is just junk you need to throw it away and start over it’s not just it’s un untrained I can come in and just I walk in and I can say here’s the easy button do this it solves your immediate problem but we haven’t fixed the issue with which is you’re pulling a thousand Excel files in from random places and Excel users can edit however they want in the file so there’s no consistency in the data like it doesn’t happen so like to me that’s the struggle that I find here is like I I struggle to find like sometimes yes I can be the Easy Button

56:12 sometimes yes I can be the Easy Button yes as a consultant you’re paid to for time and your your time on the other hand I want to just be a consultant I just want to show up and give recommendations walk away I don’t want to have tasks and action items at the end of the stuff sometimes I just want to show up and like hey this is what you should do fix it like this see you don’t you people for that don’t you do that anyway that’s true I actually P that off guys I solved all these problems now you go do it yes exactly I like it when I go into a meeting and the client has more homework than I do at the end of the meeting that that’s when it really works out well so

56:43 well so anyways awesome well we we’ve talked through a really good topic I think aside from our bumpy start I think we I think we did a good job aligning on how can organizations measure their talent or their skills and towards the end here we talk a little bit more around like practical things you can do how do you be consistent how to identify your Champions how you can invest back into your people to help them educate and learn and give them recognition for things that they’re doing so I thought those were really good topics with that we would like to say

57:13 topics with that we would like to say thank you very much for listening to the podcast we really appreciate your time this was a another good episode if you like the content you heard here and you want to share it with somebody else if you’re not embarrassed to share it with anybody else we’d really appreciate it please share it on your social media talk to it someone else at work see if anyone else listens to the podcast actually ask around hey have you heard this this explicit M’s podcast I’m learning so many great things on there you should you should spend a little extra time leveled up leveled up using the podcast so that being said I

57:43 the podcast so that being said I do want to say thank you all very much and we really appreciate it if you like this video please give it some comments down below let us know what you’re thinking about this topic it really helps the interaction and engagement with with the platform Tommy where else can you find the podcast well you can find it anywhere that’s available you can find us on Apple Spotify YouTube really helps out a ton especially if you subscribe to the our audio have a question idea or topic that you want us to talk about in a future episode head over to powerbi tipsthe podcast and or SL podcast and

58:13 tipsthe podcast and or SL podcast and leave your name and a great question join us live every Tuesday and Thursday A. M Central and join the conversation with the rest of the community on all powerbi tips social media channels you don’t have to ask a great question we’ll take some mediocre ones if it’s a dumb question we’re definitely not answering it like if it’s a dumb question we’re it’s out the door like we won’t even just kidding we we’ll we’ll at least read them at least Tommy will I I don’t know I don’t know how many questions I read all the time but we’ll read all the questions I added I added that because

58:43 questions I added I added that because of you last time because I said make sure to leave a qu I said leave your name are and you like oh don’t forget their question I’m like like just we get a whole bunch of comments that just Rob Bob Tommy thanks thanks guys guys TP anyways thank you all so much we’ll see you next

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