Dashboards in Action

Creating effective metrics

Matthew Mace — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:40:00 GMT

Lately, I've had a few clients ask me about selecting the best metrics and KPIs for their organization. My recommendation was to review the chapter on “how to create effective metrics” from Wayne Eckerson's book, Performance Dashboards. There he lists the twelve characteristics of effective metrics/KPIs:

Aligned - to corporate strategy
Owned – by an individual or group
Predictive – measure drivers of business value
Actionable – populated with timely data so users can improve performance
Few in Number – focus users on high value tasks, not scatter attention on too many things
Easy to Understand – straight forward, not based on complex formulas that users can’t influence
Balanced and Linked – should reinforce each other, optimize processes
Trigger Change – should cause a chain reaction of positive changes in the organization
Standardized – based on standard set of rules, definitions, calculations
Context Driven – put performance into context by applying targets, thresholds, trends
Reinforced – attach compensation or incentives to each metric (do this with caution!)
Relevant – must be periodically reviewed and refreshed, and matter for the issues at hand

I'd add a comment that business intelligence solutions should include date calculations for any measure, including % changes for prior period, previous day, week, month, quarter, year, etc. depending on the nature of the business. We always ask the business users what would be helping in analyzing trends and spotting trouble areas.

Microsoft BI Strategy Update April 2009: SharePoint, PerformancePoint and SQL Server

Matthew Mace — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:27:00 GMT

By now you've likely seen the announcement from Microsoft regarding its Business Intelligence platform, PerformancePoint. The company is reconfiguring its product mix and will now bundle PerformancePoint Server with SharePoint. We agree with Gartner's assessment that this is a smart move for Microsoft and has the potential to provide significant benefits for Microsoft --and our clients!

Here is what Microsoft said:
"Microsoft's strategy is to deliver BI to everyone in the organization through the broadly adopted tools of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Excel, and build on the scalable Microsoft SQL Server BI platform. Based on customer feedback, we are moving the scorecard, dashboard, and analytic functionality from Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server into Office SharePoint Server Enterprise, making these capabilities available throughout the organization at a lower total cost of ownership."

With this move, Microsoft is taking a major leap forward in terms of creating Collaborative Business Intelligence and making it affordable.

It allows us to fully mix monitoring & analytical components with traditional collaborative components such as discussion boards, task lists, document libraries, and more.

It creates "actionable dashboards" to help team members in an organization take immediate steps to solve an issue or take advantage of an opportunity presented by the information.

Millions of SharePoint Enterperise CAL license holders just gained instant access to BI capabilities through PerformancePoint. In other words, if you own SharePoint with eCAL licenses and Software Assurance, you will be able to start a BI initiative without purchasing additional software.

Future of Business Intelligence

Matthew Mace — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:42:00 GMT

At the keynote presentation of the Microsoft BI Conference 2008 this morning vendor sponsors including Accenture, Dell, HP, Hitachi, and ProfitBase discussed the future of Business Intelligence. Several interesting ideas were raised about what BI might look like in 2010, including:

BI solutions will be built and managed by business users, not IT, as demands grow for new information, faster
Data Architects as we know them today will evolve into Information Architects, professionals who deeply understand the information lifecycle of the organization, from "birth to archival"
BI becomes core to the business, like ERP and email today, becoming embedded in everyday processes, decisions, and actions
BI solutions include exabytes of data, and the infrastructure to support the storage and retrieval of this data grows exponentially - the servers and systems to handle these volumes grow through virtualization and other intelligent architectures

I believe two other trends we will see over the next 10 years include:

Focus on better, faster, and more efficient data visualization options for business users. Pie charts and gauges are not going to cut it. We need advanced visualization tools that will let us quickly sift through the mounds of data piling up in our systems.
Expanding BI solutions to external users - customers, vendors, partners - integrating data from their systems and sharing information back to improve the overall ecosystem of the business

Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference

Matthew Mace — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:40:00 GMT

I'm wrapping up my first full day here at the Microsoft BI Conference in Seattle. It's the second annual conference and I attended the first one back in early 2007. So far Microsoft is delivering as promised with loads of case studies, best practice examples, and great information on the complete "BI stack". The sense is that Microsoft has arrived as one of the top four BI mega vendors with IBM, Oracle, and SAP - except that Microsoft has a major leg up in the "BI for Everyone" space.

The highlight of the day was the discussion around "Gemini", a new function of SQL Server 2008 to be released in 18 months or so. Gemini will allow non-developer business users and analysts to build ad hoc OLAP cube environments through Excel. The solution will really change the way we approach "starter BI" projects with specific departments or teams. Instead of building a data mart, OLAP cube, and the UI, we'll instead start with Excel to pull together existing and new data sources to build new BI solutions without a lot of IT overhead.

As a partner its exciting to see the progress that has been made since the last conference, and the number of customers who are solidly behind the Microsoft BI vision.

I'm looking forward to the keynote tomorrow by Ben Stein who will address the economy and how BI can help. http://blogs.msdn.com/bi/default.aspx

Ryder Cup 2008: Lessons from Paul Azinger

Matthew Mace — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:29:00 GMT

In case you missed it, the U.S. won the Ryder Cup of golf from the Europeans this past weekend – the first time in 10 years. Much of the excitement was around U.S. Captain Paul Azinger’s change in the points system used to select the 12 players who would compete on the U.S. squad. Which lead me to the question – is Paul Azinger the next Billy Beane?

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, is one of my favorite books, first introduced to me by Andy Catlin of Metrics Reporting. Andy would use the book to show senior executives the value of analytics when making decisions, creating a competitive advantage over the competition. Moneyball tells the story of Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s. The A’s did not have the resources to match the Yankees, and used analytics to find the most talented baseball players at the best price (who they could afford). The A’s teams would consistently outperform other franchises even though they had one of the lowest payrolls in Major League Baseball.

The Ryder Cup team selection process works in a similar way. The Ryder Cup is played every two years, and the points system would take into account those two years of tournament results to select the 10 top golfers from hundreds of potential PGA players. Azinger did not agree with the details of the approach, and required the PGA of America to change its selection process before he would accept the role of Captain. His goal was to select the best players who had the most potential to win the Cup back from the Europeans.

As part of the new selection process, Azinger put more emphasis on the biggest, most pressure filled tournaments – the “majors” like the U.S. Open or Masters. He also changed the selection date so more recent tournaments right before the Ryder Cup would count towards the points system. The selection process was a great example of the use of analytics to make better decisions. The process was fair - everyone knew how the points system worked and could see after each tournament where they stood. Like Billy Beane as baseball, Azinger has forever changed the Ryder Cup and the system the U.S. will use to put its best players on the course.

My question for corporate America is this – If you had to pick your top team members for a critical project or initiative, do you know how would you do it? Would you use your “gut instinct”, or do you have a fair system of measurement in place?

Design IQ Quiz

Matthew Mace — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:18:00 GMT

Any aspiring BI Application Designers/Developers out there? How well do you understand the principles of good graph and table design? Take this 10 question quiz from Stephen Few to find out.

http://www.perceptualedge.com/files/GraphDesignIQ.html

Communities of Practice

Matthew Mace — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:45:00 GMT

A constant challenge of implementing new technology is the time-to-productivity of its users. In the corporate arena this is exacerbated by the remoteness that technology enables. Be it Blackberry or internet café, two users of the same system can be - quite literally – a world apart. But there is solution. It’s called Communities of Practice. And they are popping up in BI-savvy organizations everywhere.

Many user-defined and driven groups emerged first on their own. Users developed methods for sharing both practical and applied knowledge gained through their information systems. Today, however, smart companies are latching on to the concept to the betterment of organizational performance. These structured communities increase the availability of and access to new information. And they continuously push best practices through the organization – whether they originate from the top down or bottom up. What’s more, these groups are enabling companies to leverage there information systems investments at an unprecedented pace.

The University of Michigan offers a best practice example of an organization that’s embraced Communities of Practice. The University developed a Business Intelligence strategy in 2004 when it recognized the far reaching implications of BI on the growth of the University. Like a lot of large and complex organizations, U of M wanted to ensure that its policy and visioning center – its central office - was in sync with the parts of the organization actually carrying out its mission.

A BI Leadership Center was created to establish BI as a core process that would bridge the efforts of the University’s central office, its individual colleges and the work of the Michigan Administrative Information Services (MAIS). MAIS was charged with creating, implementing, driving and supporting BI as a strategic component of the University.

Recently, MAIS announced its 2008 BI program with a series of events designed to teach the University’s information workers how to leverage data and learn from others on campus. The program includes a calendar of events anchored at a central information portal that is accessible to select users. Integral to this year’s program is a roster of lessons learned from last year’s program.

BlueGranite recommends this type of approach to its clients, and can help develop a Community of Practice for Business Intelligence within our client’s organizations. The key is finding a champion within each department or team . They should be excited about the new tools, a quick learner with computer technology, and willing to teach others and share. Organizations will find new levels of performance and success as team members uncover ways to use Business Intelligence in their day-to-day approach to their job.