Advising delegates at the Business Objects SA user conference last week to take a "tough love" approach with users, the company's strategic marketing director Timo Elliott said taking a "my way or the highway" attitude doesn't work.

"It will just get you fired; you need to guide users into the core value of the information," he said.

Outlining five fatal BI flaws, Elliott said slow user adoption is a common stalling point in BI projects.

Other fatal errors include treating the project as a one-off, lack of user training and alignment with business.

Another one is no understanding of the data or how to question it.