But of course the opposite of liking something is not represented in any way. Should we be able to dislike a post? Yet of course there is a little element of social responsibility that needs to happen here. Surely whether you like of dislike something said you should justify your stance or tell the person what you do not like. There is often value in criticising what a person has said – it assists them in learning and growing.

Perhaps the real point here is not disliking something but disagreeing with something said, after all this is merely one person’s opinion that is represented. This is always valid for a debate on any professional subject. The fact that two people can disagree on a specific point is not bad; it merely means there is no general acceptance of the issue at hand. Debate can be good and social media is a powerful place for discussions on any subject. This is one aspect that makes LinkedIn Answers such a powerful part of that network, because it is possible to ask a question in such a way that allows for debate to occur on the issue.

Toastmasters is a respected organisation that assist people through the challenge of public speaking. Part of that process is evaluation and when any person’s speech is being critiqued then both positive and negative points are viewed as a part of the learning process. Thus the speaker learns both what they have done well and what they have done poorly; this helps them through their next project.

Debates are better aired than allowed to fester.

—-

Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready? For the Social Media Revolution” is now available on Amazon.

“If driven by IT, the decision is more focused on operational and architectural considerations than business requirements.”

This is a comment that seems to have been doing the rounds recently in one form or another. Lets examine more closely to see who should be responsible for project decision making.

Actually the information technology department must always take into consideration a variety of views when making a decision to purchase any software; including:

◊ Business needs

◊ Business processes

◊ Functionality offered

◊ The technology architecture

◊ Cost

◊ ROI

When a decision is made entirely by the business community then this can lead to inconsistencies in the corporate architecture, which can increase operational costs, particularly in solutions where data integration is required, for example the BI solution.

Having worked on a large number of projects over the years there is one one consistent part of any successful project – the views of the business. The author has much experience delivering projects, on one occasion he worked on two simultaneous projects to deliver the same type of solution run at two different corporations having a similar technology architecture. The results of the selection process led to the selection of two different products, all because of the business focus of the selection process.

Tough times do call for strategic decision making, but that does need to be a balanced decision considering all of the factors involved. Purchasing of solutions is never simple, but too many companies fail to perform a comprehensive business process review – the make a sweeping assumption that they must replace their ailing ERP solution. All too often it is the business process itself that is broken, not the system that supports it. Simply replacing the system without fixing the business process will only give short term gratification, within five years that corporation will be changing systems yet again; more dissatisfied than ever before with the level of service offered by their IT department. Yet the basic problem is not an IT one.

Deployments should always be executed in the best interests of the business. The way to ensure this occurs is having business boards control the spending of project budgets. It is through the partnership of business and technology management that there is the right level of sponsorship and intervention. It is not about inter-departmental turf wars, but synergy and achieving broader business goals.

Inter-systems integration can often one of the greatest challenges faced for any specific deployment. Business intelligence is always a crucial factor to consider. BI solutions must be ongoing within any corporation; every new system brings new data, which is required to continue developing the analytical capabilities. Of course any business analytics capability must grow even if there are no new systems being added.

The net result of all this change should always be a leaner and more focused organisation that is able to make intelligent, fact based decisions across the business.

The addition of new technologies, like cloud computing, and social media we have new ways to access and publish important data and statistics about our trade or industry sector. Our ability to make good decisions should largely be based on the data that can be obtained about the subject at hand, and on the analysis of results identified. This should be the basis for the most informed decisions made, yet many of the business managers who interpret the results all too often prefer to use their own gut-instinct than believe the report in front of them.

Is it natural? Yes, but that does not make it right. If a business is going to invest millions of dollars into its data and information systems over a long period of time ensuring automated processes are closely linked to business activity then ensuring that the results are taken seriously is an imperative. To assess a set of results and dismiss them is one matter, but to ignore them altogether is another.

The latter course is the dangerous path that a large number of managers find they are taking because they do not have time in their schedule to understand the results. This is a case of making time to ensure that the groundwork is laid before the critical decision must be made. For example are all those meetings necessary? If they are then can someone else attend? Or can the work be done another way? It is necessary to step back and understand the analysis before making that decision. Remember in most non-critical matters 80 percent of your return comes from 20 percent of your effort and often inordinate effort is spent attaining perfection, when it need not be. Non-critical matters can always be temporarily put on the back-burner, or delegated, when time is of the essence for a critical decision.

Business is in a state of continuous improvement. Look at the history of any corporation, it is unlikely to be run the same way today as it was twenty years ago. Yet that seems to be the way in which some decision are often made. For that improvement to be truly effective across the corporate culture then informed decision making needs to be a part of that picture. Some elements that require thought:

◊ Informed decision making requires more holistic thinking

◊ Sound science is a critical component of sound decision making

◊ The scientific results are a means to making informed decisions, not an end in themselves

◊Provided with reliable information and reliable tools to process it, people will make decisions that are good for themselves and their corporation.

Armed with some thinking in each of these areas it is possible to make better use of the information available throughout the decision making process.

1. A full data model, usually linked closely with an operational application. SAP, Peoplesoft, Siebel and other software suppliers provide Data Warehouses linked with their ERP and CRM applications.
2. An industry ‘template’ that provides a basic model Data Warehouse relating to the industry sector that the business is trading in.

Remember this section is talking purely about the supporting database, the Data Warehouse, rather that the overall BI solution.

Additionally there are Cloud based BI, or BI as a Service, solutions that tend to have their own internal database, most are linked to cloud based solutions. Generally you should consider these to be included with the first choice here as they are normally related to other operational applications. However some cloud based solutions are not extendible, which may be a factor in the decision making.

This is a continuing article based upon: Financing the Business Intelligence Project (Buy or Build?)…

Full Data Warehouse Model:

Many software companies claim to provide pre-built, fully configurable and extensible Data Warehousing solutions. Few, if any, actually provide an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution for the Data Warehouse that is not linked to another application. Most are linked with other operational software, such as Enterprise Resource Planning or Customer Relationship Management, where the business will have committed a significant investment such technology and associated change programmes.

Solutions are likely to be tailored to industry specific business analysis needs and will probably include pre-configured ETL components that may include extraction software for other commonly used software packages. This can act as a considerable advantage as it can reduce Data Integration efforts.

The advantage offered is that where a business uses the supplier’s solution it can have a ready-made business intelligence offering ‘for a few dollars per head more’. The final solution is still customisable, but is linked into key enterprise systems. This is an excellent goal, but whether it is achievable is a question that must be factored into the decision process.

Industry Templates:

Bill Inmon, used to be a great believer in the use of industry templates, or generic data models. Other companies also provide customisable data models, focused on specific marketplaces. The general aim of these templates is to act as a teaser for a subsequent engagement of the supplier’s consultancy services in order to have that organisation complete the full Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence implementation.

Templates or generic data models are therefore an aid, or kick-start, to custom development rather than a full blown ready-made solution. They are discussed here because generic data models are sometimes seen as a solution rather than a step-up on the development process. The template, or generic data model, can provide a boost to the initial Data Warehouse development project. They can be used to:

♦  Provide a foundation that can be built upon

♦  Identify major data classes

♦  Identify common relationships

♦  Identify some common attributes within the data

♦  Identify some common keys and unique identifiers

♦  Get the modelling exercise off to a fast start

In other words, the generic data model is a good starting point for the creation of a corporate data model, upon which the Data Warehouse will be founded. Using the template or generic data model as the corporate data model is inevitably a mistake. They do not alleviate the need to think about the design of any solution; they simply provide a way to jump-start the data modelling exercise.

The template or generic data model is not really a ready-made solution it is really a short-cut to providing a custom solution. Such a model will not include any pre-configured ETL components so these factors have to enter into any decision made.

The Decision:

At the end of the day having a customisable model is important because the Business Intelligence capability should be able to map onto the organisation’s USP. These are factors that you need to use in order to make your purchase decision. The best models are visible and expansible.

It is easy to assume that there is a ready made solution available and today’s choices are becoming increasingly complex, because vendors are learning the lessons from work they have completed for customers in the past and they have therefore extended their models to include a large array of new capabilities. Some vendors have simply extended default models over time others make these capabilities available only for extra cost. Make sure you know all the cost factors before making any decision.

The Next Decision Factor: Your Corporate Architecture and the complexity of data

In order to make a good decision it is important to have at hand all of the pertinent facts. In a business environment that means having all the information, the statistics and personal knowledge necessary to make a decision. However we often have to make decision based on something less, the pressure of business need that snap decision. Apparently 80% of business leaders have to make major decisions without full information.

Having made a few of these types of decision myself over the years I know it is important to decide and move on. Today we have more information at our fingertips than we have ever had before. I can also attest even where decisions were made based on full Business Intelligence and forecasts mistakes can still be made, yet at the time a decision was necessary in order to move the situation forward. We are after all living in the here and now. Yesterday is over, and tomorrow never comes so we have to decide based on the best information available. Making better information available may be a part of the decision that we make. But still the decision must be made.

So we must take ownership of the decisions made and learn from them. Some may say that therefore we must also take the blame when things go wrong. As a part of learning (and these days most organisations seek to be learning organisations) we must learn when things go wrong and ensure that we do not make the same mistakes again. After all we based the decision on the best information that we had available to us at the time. But of course on the basis of living in the here and now we should also be prepared to re-look at old decisions and see if there are things to be learnt.

I have to think that nothing is permanent, we can always start over, make a new decision. But that is something people can be afraid to do – me included.

Here is where I hear some people scream “Oh No! – that Giblett fellow is going to cost us a fortune as we implement new systems in order to face new world challenges”. No that is not necessary. Just because we face change does not mean sweeping away our systems and replacing them with new. The change I am talking about here is ensuring that the business processes are capable of working successfully right here, right now. It is a business matter, not a systems one.