The goal of Climbing the Ladder of Business Intelligence is to introduce an intelligence framework that builds a foundation for success. The Ladder is really a Ladder of Business Intelligence (LOBI) that aims to create intelligent organizations in which technology systems are designed to support success. Problems: * Good decision making is rare in the business world * In 2005, an estimated $150 billion was spent on IT systems that were either canceled or suffered cost overruns * There is a great waste of human and artificial intelligence in the majority of companies * All this means that most businesses are not operating anywhere near their capacity However: There are successful companies that do operate intelligently - that make good decisions, don't waste resources and make smart use of IT. Solution: Our goal in this book is to introduce a framework that builds a foundation for success. We will demonstrate how to use this framework to enable skillful use of technology and better use of human intelligence. Each step up the Ladder creates a more intelligent organization, one that is able to operate smarter and faster.