Why Power BI Platforms Go Wrong: The Patterns I See in Every Audit

After auditing dozens of Power BI platforms over the years there are certain patterns that give me the fear. Some are obvious risks. Others are small “sticky plasters” that seem harmless, until they quietly become structural problems. Or maybe they just personally offend me...

In this fast paced lightning session I will walk through the common patterns I repeatedly encounter when platforms start to drift out of control. I will begin with my Power BI Governance and Adoption framework to show how I quickly assess environments that have become unmanageable beasts. We’ll go beyond the usual “someone left Publish to Web enabled” examples and look at the more subtle, sometimes niche behaviours that quietly undermine Power BI platforms over time. Importantly, we’ll explore what these issues often represent culturally, not just technically.

This session is about recognising patterns and understanding what they represent for your team and systems before they impact your platform stability. If you’ve ever looked at your tenant and thought, “how did we get here?”, this session is for you.

- Recognise the most common Power BI platform failure patterns before they become entrenched.
- Understand what these patterns often signal about team behaviour and platform culture.
- Gain a practical lens for quickly assessing whether a Power BI tenant is heading for trouble.