BI - It's Not Just Reporting

Many times across my career I've been frustrated by what is, in my opinion, a gross under utilisation of business intelligence tools, platforms and even functions and teams such as Business Intelligence Competency Centres. All too often significant investment has been made in purchasing software, building data warehouses and other solutions, training staff and hiring external consultants, only to have this considerable horsepower and potential being set to work on (just) "the reporting".

Building BI solutions often comes at considerable cost in both time and money and if the chief item provided is purely a set of static reports that tell us what has happened in our organisations then someone, somewhere (and probably somewhere higher up in the organisational chart) will sooner or later start to question the wisdom of the investment. And that's not just a problem for the here and now of the current project, but for the future too. If he has been tainted as to the general value of business intelligence then he may well push back against future initiatives in the area, potentially robbing the organisation of future competitive advantage or effectiveness gains. The problem is made worse still when the default approach to setting project scope is to examine the set of existing reports available from in and around the incumbent solution. In this case the company will have a shiny new toy and (maybe) a prettier set of reports, but may not have gained much in the way of additional business value or actionable insight.

We need to remember that BI offers the potential for much more than just reporting. This was true well over a decade ago and is even more true today with the technology and tool advances we've seen between then and now. Just look at the name: BI, that's Business intelligence folks - intelligence for the business. Simply knowing what happened (via a report), for the sake of compliance, audit or because the procedures say we need to have a piece of paper punched and filed on a shelf, really does little for the running of the business, let alone its advancement. BI should be about helping make decisions that better the business, that help it carry out its operations in the best way possible.

The term "decision support" may seem a bit old school, but perhaps it does capture what BI can offer to the business other than just "the reports". Recently I heard the phrase "the three tenses of BI" and it resonated with me. The first phase is historical - this is the looking back, telling us what happened, function of BI - these are the reports that so often get developed as the majority, or even the entirety, of a BI project. The second tense is the present tense. BI instruments in this area tell us what is happening right now. Reports can serve this function too, but often they miss a key component that stops them playing an effective role. Whatever is used here, be it reports, OLAP components or some type of complex event processing, the information conveyed must be provided in a form and in a time frame that allows it to be used by the recipients in a manner and a timeliness which causes a change which benefits the business that would not otherwise have occurred. The third tense of BI looks to the future - using not only internal information but also looking at wider information sets to try and predict what may happen in the future in and around the organization, thereby providing food for thought for those setting the strategic direction for the organization. What's important to note there is that the second and third tenses of BI require information and intelligence to be presented in order not just to enable decisions to be made, but perhaps also go so far as to highlight that decisions should, or even must, be made.

Simply having a great set of tools available isn't enough. If we want to move on from being perceived as just report writers then it's up to us, as BI professionals, to educate others as to the potential of BI, challenging and assisting them to find ways in which it can be better used across our organisations. So go on, take the first step - share this blog post :)

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Data Scientist

Some time in the early 1970s I formed my first career aspiration. When I grew up I wanted to be a bus. Yes, you read that right - not a bus driver, but a bus. It seems ridiculous now, some 40-odd years later, but I certainly wanted it bad back then! The reason it didn't seem crazy all those years ago is that I really had no idea what being a bus involved and what's more a bus seemed like a pretty cool thing to be - lots of the books that I had read to me featured buses zooming all over the countryside having all manner of exciting adventures, there was at least one cartoon where one of the main characters was a bus, and buses even had songs sung about them. Why wouldn't a three year old boy want to be a bus?

Fast forward 40 years and focus on the data industry: big data is being talked about in server rooms, board rooms and everywhere in between, and the term Data Scientist is becoming more and more common. It's a position I'd never heard of twelve months ago and now it seems hardly a day goes by where I don't see it mentioned in a blog post, industry email, or white paper, etc. A quick look at a number of job posting sites across the web confirms that organisations are indeed looking to hire people into roles with the Data Scientist title. But does anyone really know what the job entails, is there an agreed job description, even in a general sense? Judging by the diverse descriptions of the job ads I looked at it certainly doesn't seem so. I've talked before about my concerns that the Big Data concept is very much an overloaded and poorly understood term and I worry that the new "must have" role of Data Scientist is facing the same problems.

But, so what? Does this situation even matter? I think so. I applaud anything that raises the profile of those of us that work in the data and information space. I still remember what it was like to ride the wave in the early days of business intelligence and data warehousing and if others can have similar experiences and success today due to the next big thing being data centric then that's a good thing. However, I worry if the  shining beacon of the Data Scientist role starts to lure people from other facets of IT, or potentially worse still, attracts students entering University whilst the speciality is still in its infancy. With the role a Data Scientist will play, and how they will deliver value, yet to become understood in a consistent way then how can we expect our higher education institutions to prepare courses of study that will equip students with the skills that they will need when they reach the work force? I wonder if we will see such courses morphing, emerging and disappearing over coming years as industry and the universities try to better find what is expected of Data Scientists and how to build the knowledge and skills base they need to be successful. What of these early students, the guinea pigs or crash test dummies of the coming wave of graduate data scientists? Are we leading them astray, promising them areas of work, challenges and career paths which no-one yet knows will actually be there in the same form (or at all) five or ten years from now? Let's not promise too much too early. Better people come to the profession with their eyes open and with realistic views of what to expect, than simply because of hype.

Enough doom and gloom. If anyone can really tell me what a Data Scientist does, I'd love to know. I actually might want to be one when I grow up.

Data Ownership and Data Responsibility Should Go Hand in Hand

Chances are that all of us who have tried to advance a Data Governance initiative will have had the data ownership discussion and socialized the idea that IT shouldn't own the data. In the earlier years of my data governance efforts getting acceptance of this concept was most often the first stumbling block. Common remarks from both the business and IT fronts reflected long established culture and practices in which data was seen as an IT focus - they managed it, wrangled it, invested and got to the root cause of data problems, and they held the responsibility of fixing data problems. This resistance, although frustrating, at least had a common theme which allowed me (and I suspect others like me) to build up a toolkit of arguments, presentations, stories and case studies to help move stakeholders toward an understanding that data is best owned by the business and not the IT function.

I've written about the need to keep working away toward implementing data governance before in my post on Thinking Like a Vogon. Having a bag of tricks built up and finessed over time is, in my opinion, key to successfully importing data governance at an organization. It allows those of us charged with championing data governance to keep working toward advancing stakeholder understanding and buy-in over weeks, months and years. Recently I've noticed a trend which has the potential to poke a hole in this bag of tricks, reducing its effectiveness and necessitating a rethink of how I engage with stakeholders. These days I encounter less push back when I propose the idea that IT doesn't own the data. The concept that the business owns the data now often seems to be easily accepted, with some business users going as far as saying "of course we own the data!"

Acceptance! It's all easy from here, right? Maybe not. While there seems to be a lot more widespread agreement that business users own the data this doesn't always translate into the best outcomes for data governance and improved data quality. Statements from stakeholders along the lines of "we own the data, but IT let us down because they can't get the data quality right and they don't understand our data" ring alarm bells for me. That one step forward may just have been followed by two quick steps back. What's missing here is responsibility. Ownership without responsibility is hollow and reflects an understanding which still has quite some way to go to reach maturity. I liken this sort of statement to a father boasting about the achievements of his children before reaching for the phone to arrange a nanny to look after them whilst they are home from boarding school. Just like we can't expect school teachers and others to take sole responsibility for shaping our childrens' lives and helping them through their problem times, business users can not claim to be data owners and then take a passive role only getting involved in data issues long enough to point the finger of blame at IT.

So how can we this new phenomenon be dealt with? Sure, a part of what needs to be done is updating the message and tailoring the tools and communication methods we use to address this new position. But, it's more than that, as data governance professionals we need to look for ways of showing those in the business with this view "what's in it for them". We should look to find success stories - show where there was demonstrable benefit gained when another business user started to take an active interest in the health and well being of their data. Even better, we should spend time with those business users who have already embraced not just data ownership but data responsibility as well, helping to make them into champions for the cause and assisting them to sell the benefits to their colleagues. The broader IT function also has a role to play here. We need to ensure that IT doesn't reinforce the existing culture, and as such there needs to be a little gentle push back when the business shows signs of pushing all data responsibility to IT. This need not mean a flat out "no", nor an abdication of any and all responsibility, but rather taking these opportunities to engage with business users, working with them as enablers rather just than in isolation as technical troubleshooters blindly trying to solve problems often without enough context or knowledge. By working together - making changes on both sides - IT will boost data context familiarity and those on the business side will get involved more often and earlier. From a management perspective, look to change IT policies if they talk about IT owning and managing the data, and think about establishing data reference groups.

No matter what approaches we take, there is one very important thing that can not be forgotten. We must help business people in their new roles as data stewards. We can not leave them to feel their way along. Build documentation and tools to help and guide them, recognise new responsibilities by modifying Position Descriptions and the way these people are measured and rewarded for performance. Not only will this signal that the organisation is serious about data governance and data quality, but it will also guide and encourage the stewards to perform better.