[hermitcrab]

So if Bob from accounts needs a new report generating, he has to wait for 6 month for an IT guy to do it? Who probably won't do a very good job, because he doesn't understand what Bob needs as well as Bob does? Bob is going to hack something horrific together in Excel instead. Better surely to let Bob have a GUI point and click tool more appropriate to the job?

[morkalork]

On the other hand, Bob keeps asking for a self-serve reporting tool but in my experience, he doesn't actually want to use it. We went the route of putting all the data into a lake and hooking up GUI reporting tools to it and what did we get? Bob doesn't understand this or that column, Bob made a report that is fundamentally flawed, Bob sent a request for the engineers to make him a report using the tool and so on. Bob wanted something, or someone else, to do the work for him. When it became apparent that the tool isn't magic and can neither read minds nor divinate the true meaning of data in the DB, it became the engineer's problem again. So why not let engineers use the tools they prefer?

[hermitcrab]

>On the other hand, Bob keeps asking for a self-serve reporting tool but in my experience, he doesn't actually want to use it.

Bob can't have it both ways. ;0)

>So why not let engineers use the tools they prefer?

Empowering end-users shouldn't mean forcing engineers to use the same tools, against their will.

[pelasaco]

Bob doesn't write a specification, because Bob doesn't know as well what he wants. He will have to explore, try out until he reaches something that he can work with. Nobody is willing to spend time planning and documenting stuff. Everyone feels one youtube away from being expert in software development.