The Six Hats of Business Intelligence

Six Thinking Hats and BI

If you are one to enjoy giving your brain a work-out, like to think outside the square and want to learn how to do it better, or are interested in learning new management methodologies, you have probably read one of Edward De Bono's books in the past. The first time I heard about Edward De Bono was when I was teamed with a business improvement consultant who had previously worked with Michelin. Michelin were huge advocates of Edward de Bono's methodologies, as you can imagine in the tyre business one of the greatest differentiators is innovation. At Michelin it was De Bono's techniques that led to allowed the organisation to look at making tyres differently. The concept of looking at nature for innovative ideas was a new one at the time, and it was De Bono's lateral thinking principles that contributed to Michelin's leadership in lateral thinking. The interaction with this consultant inspired me to read the book "Six Thinking Hats" - an international best seller. It has been years since I read this novel and thought about the impact of lateral thinking to day-to-day activities, so I decided to pick it up and review the concepts in the context of Business Intelligence decision-making.

Review the Six Thinking Hats

You should buy or re-read the book if it's been a while, but briefly, De Bono outlines a methodology to problem solving and interacting which uses "role-playing" to analyse the problem from 6 different angles, each point of view is a different coloured hat. Not only is each hat a point of view, but together using the hats can facilitate meetings, discussions and used correctly can truly change the culture of a company to be more accepting of new ideas, and encourage giving different points of view without criticism. You can see already how this simple methodology can be effective. I'll review the hats quickly and then apply them in the world of BI.

White Hat - Facts and Figures. An objective and neutral hat.

Red Hat - Emotions and Feelings. This is an emotional view.

Black Hat - Cautious and Careful. Serious and a hat used to point out weaknesses.

Yellow Hat - Speculative - Positive. An optomistic hat with lots of hope.

Green Hat - Creative Thinking hat.

Blue Hat - Organising the use of the other hats. Executive hat.

Each of the hats can be combined with other hats, but for my analogy, I will assume a position including the use of only one hat at a time. If you are looking at the description of the hats, you probably already have an idea of which person you work with wears which hat most of the time. The concept that De Bono introduces is that although you may normally wear a yellow hat, if you put on a black hat for example, how would your decision change. In this article, I will play on the typical roles, departments and/or responsibilities in an organisation, and demonstrate how their hat might give them a certain point of view. I would also go on to say that if you are in one of these positions, that it is okay (in fact encouraged) to put on a different hat to see another department's point of view.

The Six Hats of Enterprise Business Intelligence

I will use an example of an organisation that has a variety of tools scattered about the enterprise. Some of the activity is "under the wire" but much of the reporting and analysis activity is known. It has been decided that a business intelligence strategy will be crafted and deployed. Here are some of the hats that will surface as we take this journey. Note: The concept of the Six Thinking Hats is if you typically wear one of these hats, to try to put on another hat for a differenct point of view. When each participant wears and "tries on" another angle using the Hats terminology, it can allow new ideas surface without hurting others feelings etc. Below I have tried to have a bit of fun and start with some of the hats that we often see, but challenge you to wear another hat.

White Hat - The white hat is often worn by the enterprise architects. Their role is to be unbiased, and provide an objective long-term strategy for business intelligence. Even though the business may be emotionally attached to solution, it may not be architecturally sound - physically or economically.

Red BI Hat - The emotionally charged red hat can sometimes come from a department that has a need to solve a dire problem like not being able to track profitable customers, not knowing which segments to target. Bonuses and KPIs may be matched against these outcomes, bringing a personal attachment to a solution that may need agreement by executives, IT support and other stakeholders.

Black BI Hat - The black hat should be worn by those involved with developing the business case that will outline a solution for enterprise reporting, or any solution for that matter. The cautious black hat should in fact be worn at various stages of discovery, evaluation and deployment. As De Bono states, the Black hat is the most important of the hats, and all involved with developing a BI strategy should put it on at one stage or another.

Yellow BI Hat - The optimistic yellow hat will be likely be worn by the planning and strategy team responsible for the development of a BI strategy, or can also be worn by external parties like BI consulting firms employed to support the initiative. This is an important hat since this hat will provide a vision, and a picture of what information and results can be obtained once the BI strategy has been actioned. This hat can really keep things moving when it seems there will never be an end to feral reports production!

Green BI Hat - Creativity is so important in deploying a BI strategy, and for success here all participants should try it on. Ideas on using existing infrastructure and software, narrowing the requirements, how to get more with less and creatively resourcing requirements at various stages. Again, this is a hat that is typically worn by all, but the core BI strategy team need to have it on often, and encourage stakeholders to wear it from time-to-time.

Blue BI Hat - The blue hat is reserved for the playmakers. The executive team that need to pull the BI team together, paint a vision for the future and enforce a sense of urgency. Within the cross-functional team there also needs to be a leadership hat that can be used to orchestrate the goals, talent and tools.

You may call me a mad hatter, but utilising the hat methodologies in a BI implementation helps to enact change, manage processes and create a common language. Being aware of the different hats in the organisation and some of the styles will allow effective implementation and drive you towards success.

Maybe you have other examples of hats that you have seen in a BI implementation (departmental or otherwise). Drop a note below with your examples. I'll be wearing my yellow hat with anticipation!

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.

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

Business Intelligence Competency Centres (BICCs) & Better Business Information: Breaking the Silos

Say it Together

It’s no secret. Let’s say it together “My name is ______ and I suffer from silos of information.” Doesn’t it feel better to say it out loud? The information in the form of data, processes and people is locked up in different parts of your company just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes it is simply unused, it may be used dangerously (since it probably contains unreliable information), and at times it is part of a report that IT create to highlight just how bad the problem actually has become. I can’t count the number of times that I sat down with someone in IT or a business systems role who would desperately proclaim “We have a couple hundred information systems and DB’s, and we might know how half of them are being used by the business!”


We have to realise that there was probably a good reason to invest so much time into this legacy system, and at one time it was used fervently by the business. What your concern should be is that it has been thrown into the corner of the closet like that high school Rugby shirt. While I’m not proposing that the shirt should be binned (which is probably what your partner advised), there should be an assessment as part of larger strategy to determine its longevity and use in future games. Leave the nostalgia behind!


How can a BICC Help?

Creating a Centre for Business Intelligence, or as it is commonly referred Business Intelligence Competency Centres (BICC) should be part of your strategy to unlock hidden information, centralise BI control , processes & systems, and extract value from the entire framework of information. The truth is that this is no easy task, and this approach has only recently caught on in the Australia. It requires a strong team led by “C”-levels (especially the CFO/CIO), IT Managers and Business Managers across the company. Recognition of the silo problem is the first step, but it needs to be followed by an analysis of the skills required to run a BICC, how to get funding to effectively run a BICC, and the limits of control and governance of the BICC need to drawn. If we pretended the BICC were a person, s/he would have the strongest leadership skills in the business, be able to talk business & IT, have extreme credibility, and be able to manage and communicate analytical needs.

The challenge of setting up will allow your organisation to reap the rewards of better business information, data integrity, cost savings and reliable enterprise business intelligence.

To learn more about how a BICC can break the silos of information and deliver enterprise business intelligence, contact me for a workshop.