Tuesday, September 15, 2009

What Business Intelligence Decision Makers Want

Mel Gibson Knows a Successful BI Approach

If anyone has seen the Mel Gibson film “What Women Want”, you wouldn’t forget the scene where Mel Gibson’s character falls into a bathtub complete with ladies shoes, lipstick, nail polish and to top it off ... wearing tights. He was trying to understand how women think (and evidently what they might want to buy) in order to be a more successful marketing professional. Ultimately the fall into the bathtub electrocutes him and he emerges with the ability to listen to the thoughts of women. Besides the inevitable romantic match-up with Helen Hunt’s character, he becomes incredibly successful at understanding his target market – women. The Edward De Bono book “Six Thinking Hats” hammers home this concept in a variety of business scenarios. De Bono (one of the great lateral thinkers of our time) devises a method of problem solving using 6 different “hats” or ways of thinking to analyse and ultimately resolve problems. Like in the film “What Women Want” putting yourself in the shoes (or under the hat as it were) of the people you are trying to reach out to, will allow you to better understand their requirements.

Thinking Hats, Mel Gibson & BI...I’m Confused!

If you are charged with the task of assembling a team to deliver information to the business, you will be successful if you follow Mel Gibson’s lead and put on the thinking hat of a BI Decision Maker. Often times the business will examine their existing reports (often cobbled together in Excel or Word) and ask the BI deployment team to replicate the report. I’ve often heard these decision makers referred to as being “very particular” business users. If your team walks away from that meeting with the mandate to replicate this report line-by-line, format-by-format, you have not really made an attempt to understand the needs of the business. In order to truly meet their needs, you will need to put on the BI thinking hat, and get inside the head of one of these decision makers. You may come to the conclusion that there is a very good reason that the report needs to be replicated verbatim, but you will probably find that there was a lot missing, or too much information in the status quo. By examining the needs of the decision maker, following the information flow (who is receiving the information that they are producing) and seriously examining the present report framework, you have an excellent opportunity to stream-line and improve the overall information reporting process. One of the exercises I like to promote is taking a report and asking the question “Who will be upset if this report doesn’t go out tomorrow?”, when we get the answer for that question we drill a bit further “If we produced the report with X,Y,Z missing as sections, who would ring you to complain?” You get the point. Just because a report has been produced the last 2 years, doesn’t mean it is relevant any longer. Additionally with new technologies, there are ways to deliver information and report results like we haven’t seen ... there should be an opportunity to educate your decision makers, understand their position and collaboratively work towards a solution.

What DO BI Decision Makers Want?


Depending on the role of the team in question, the flavour of information could be operational, financial etc. The way the information is delivered, examined or moved through the organisation is part of the foundation for any BI strategy. When it comes to the enterprise software that you are planning to use for your BI solution, many of them have a variety of these functions. But, just because you grew to 6’5” doesn’t mean you necessarily want to play basketball. What message I am trying to get across here is that even though a particular delivery method or function may exist in your BI systems, it may not be right for what you are trying to achieve. Often times a sleek, lean solution is driven towards the complex because the leaders of the BI deployment catered too much to the draw of the “gadget”. I’ll talk about the draw of the fancy dashboard in another blog entry, but for now, let’s look at what I have found businesses are looking for in a BI solution:

Play with the Data - Ad hoc, What-if?, OLAP

Let’s face it. Users of BI information want the ability to get their hands dirty. Although they may not be a full-fledged mechanic, they work on restoring cars on the week-end...and want to learn more! The best way to understand what is happening under the hood is to give them the tools to play with the data. There is nothing more in demand and successful to a BI deployment than to provide them with this capability.

Deliver Information - Standard Reporting

Going back to the early comments relating to the status quo, there will be an inevitable need to provide the business with information that is fairly static, but informative. Getting these reports refreshed in a timely and relevant manner will be key for success in developing your standard reports strategy.

Simplify Information - Dashboards

Dashboards are effective In order to see the forest for the trees, with a difference. A dashboard is most effective when you can see the forest, then a stand of trees, a particular tree, a leaf (drill-downs!) ... Decision makers want to be able to identify a problem area, and then understand the cause and effect relationship, even if it means drilling to the invoice level.

Leverage Existing Skills
- MS Office Integration

Where would we all be without Microsoft? I would probably have a few less grey hairs, but the reality is most business users are comfortable with using MS Office tools. Leveraging these tools effectively by connecting and controlling access to the underlying data, will increase user adoption and enhance the capability and investment in Microsoft Office.

Consolidate Information
- BI Portals

When your users fire up their PC, PDA or other web-enabled device, the last thing you want them to do is have to search for what they need to make their decisions. A BI portal can combine internal and external information to empower them, rather than frustrate them. This improves user adoption, and aligns the business and should be an important part of any BI strategy.

Predict an Outcome - Predictive Analytics

How did you know I was going to talk about predictive analytics? If your business users can spot trends in the information it can give you a competitive advantage since you are looking 4 moves ahead on the chess board while they are still working on their opening move. Predictive analytics seem to be mature around marketing and fraud detection, but there are countless opportunities in operations and other parts of the business that have yet to be exploited.

Wear the BI Hat for Success

I have discussed one aspect of what makes up a successful BI deployment...thinking like the user. Of course whether you are part of a Business Intelligence Competency Centre, managing divisional information or responsible for some of the reports that are delivered to your cohorts, this is only a sliver of what is required for successful, ongoing results ... but by putting on your BI hat you can get closer to that goal.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Cricket and Business Intelligence – Hitting Runs with BI

How Could Cricket and BI Possibly be Connected?

As the Ashes series came to a conclusion, and the One Day International series between England and Australia powered on, and with so many late evenings watching cricket it was bound to happen...my thoughts on business intelligence and cricket started to collide. Being a naturalised Australian, heralding from Canada; this was a strange experience indeed. I could blame it on the late nights, the newness of the sport, or the countless white papers and presentations I have participated in, but in the end my “cricket brain” and my “BI brain” began to merge as one.
So where do you start when drawing parallels between sport and BI? Well, the need to extract information from businesses for decision making has existed before the first widget came off the assembly line, and it is now a global requirement...BI is a global sport. Cricket on the other hand has been around just as long. It is believed it evolved from the game “Rounders” in the 16th century – the seed from which baseball was born as well - and became the national pastime in England by the 18th century. Cricket is played in many countries, but only a handful of countries really excel at the sport. Alright then it’s fair to say both BI and cricket are widespread, but it is very difficult to really excel at either given all the variables in the environment. We have our first run! Here’s a few more:

The Cricket Pitch and Ball is Constantly Changing


Captains, bowlers, batsmen and spectators are obsessed with the pitch and ball in cricket the same way CEOs, senior managers and investors need information on the changing conditions within a business. If the pitch forms a crack and it goes unnoticed, it could mean disaster for a batsman. Not having the tools in place to recognise where costs are pouring out of the organisation from an unmanaged crack will have the same consequences. Competitors and investors will punish this negligence making it more difficult to defend your wicket (customers, products, market share). Ensuring that you have solutions in place to monitor business performance will enable you to be confident when you are defending your wicket and aggressively playing the ball.

Different Skills for Different Conditions

In a test cricket series, the game is played on different pitches, in a variety of towns with variable weather. The history of the pitch is used with current information relating to the weather and the caretaking practices that were conducted on the days and months leading up to the competition. The captain and selectors determine what the team needs to look like in order to be successful over the next 5 days. Should there be more spinners or fast bowlers? Should elect to bat first? In the same way, a business intelligence initiative needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the requirements of different departments, regions and countries. Keep in mind that we are not breaking up the team here, we are ensuring the team is well equipped to manage these changes. If one department needs more technical or BI product support, then the captain needs to be able to cater to this requirement in order to be successful in enabling BI. A region may need most information delivered in a multi-dimensional portal in order to be competitive. The captain needs to consider this when planning a roll-out and success against competitors.

If You Can’t Defend Your Wicket, You will Be Bowled Out


In cricket there are 10 ways to get out. A few of the most common are being caught out, leg before wicket (LBW) and bowled out when the ball hits the stumps knocking off the bails. During the entire time the batsman has 10 men who only want to do one thing – “Get him out!” One overly aggressive, careless or miscalculated move, and the batsman will need to be replaced until all 10 (in most cases) have been bowled out. Business Intelligence information whether its operational, sales focussed, or for process improvement will be surrounded by an onslaught from competitors and sometimes internal attacks. With good information you will be able to defend the attacks, and with great information be able to turn the intelligence into runs that result in real profit.

Cricket and BI Come in a Variety of Flavours


Cricket in its “purest” form is as a test series that could take a couple of months to determine a victor (and even then it could be a draw). Rather than a 5 day test, cricket can also be enjoyed by limiting the number of overs to 50 as in a one day match-up or 20 in the popular Twenty20 cricket. The idea is that spectators and players can enjoy the sport with varying levels of commitment. Often times fans of Twenty20 will enjoy the sport enough to begin committing to the “One Dayers” or even a Test Series. Business Intelligence is the same in that corporations have the ability to invest in a small proof in one department, and after enjoying success they can look to deploy a wider solution. The goal may be to even centralise BI as I suggested in a previous article.

So you can see that maybe my cricket brain isn’t too far off the stumps when it comes to comparing it to Business Intelligence. I’m sure you could draw other examples, post them below if you suffer from a cricket/BI conflict as well.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Business Intelligence Defined ... Almost

The Tragedy of “Data Mining”

I suppose before we get into how Business Intelligence (BI) is used in different organisations, I should start by defining what business intelligence actually encompasses. I think it is one of those business terms that is often confused, but it is broad enough that most people feel comfortable talking about it. Before you start to engage across the business you should have an idea of what this means for your organisation and what is understood in the BI community or we could force BI into the same situation that the term “data mining” is currently. I would say that the term “data mining” is one of the most widely misused words in the BI field. I feel that this is because people hear the word “mining” and automatically attach the real-world understanding, which is to basically dig into the ground to dig up precious “stuff”. It must mean the same in a data context right? Well... sort of. It is more than just trawling through a mess of a data warehouse and finding the magic number you were looking for, it extends to identifying trends in the data by way of clustering, regression, classification and other relationships...this is more than simply finding a data point!


Back to the task at hand of defining Business Intelligence, one way to help with a definition is to start with what it is not. It is not a data warehouse, data mart or any other large store of information. This is certainly part of a BI framework the same way a wheel on a car is a part, and not the whole. A data warehouse gets BI moving, but on its own it is certainly not the final solution to most organisations challenges of access to information. I have been in meetings with customers stating that their BI woes had been resolved with an investment in a data warehouse. Relational data is great, but these companies will lose any competitive advantage they have if this investment is not leveraged.

Where Was BI Born?

A good place to start with the definition of BI can is in its traditional nomenclature as a Decision Support System (DSS) for the business. This definition has its grass-roots at MIT and Carnegie Institute in the 60’s. A DSS is differentiated in that it is a computer-based information (and knowledge-based) system that supports decision making activities rather than relying wholly on gut-feel and paper-based models of yesteryear (although these are still important aspects of decision making today). If we take this to the next level of detail, what we are talking about is information that we receive from our computer-based systems that assists in decision-making that may take the form of reports, alerts, portals, OLAP cubes, data warehouses/marts, and results from analytics (statistical and other). The information presented for decision making encompasses historical, present and predictive views and is customised by role – no matter where they sit in the organisation.

It’s Up To You

Ultimately BI should provide you with an intimate, interactive experience for developing a relationship with your data – no matter where it sits (internally and externally), but the reality is that you are responsible for defining what your organisation needs recognising that the solutions are there to unlock your information for decision making. To find out more on how your organisation can unlock your information, contact me for a workshop: Jason.Gates@Oracle.com