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Using OLAP to Improve Organizational Effectiveness – Part 2

February 28, 2010

This is the second in my series of 3 posts on using OLAP tools to improve the effectiveness of organizations.  In Part 1 I discussed some background concepts and terminology.  In this part, we’ll talk about some specific examples of how OLAP can have an impact in this area.

OLAP’s Impact on Organizational Effectiveness

How can an OLAP tool help improve an organization’s performance as measured against its objectives?  Answering this question requires a greater understanding of how strategies and tactics are implemented within organizations.  I’ll use a model of organizational effectiveness developed by Michael Beer to illustrate the implementation of strategies and tactics.

The picture below shows a simplified version of a model of organizational effectiveness developed by Michael Beer (Note on Organizational Effectiveness, 10).  Business goals and strategy influence and are influenced by top management.  Management determines and implements the proper organizational design to achieve the organization’s goals.  The design of the organization, in turn, influences human resources attributes of the organization.  Finally, these HR attributes directly impact organizational effectiveness.

Michael Beer Model

This simplified version of Michael Beer’s model is presented again below.  Added to the model though, is the position of an OLAP tool in improving organizational effectiveness.  OLAP technology exerts its influence on organizational effectiveness in three sections of the model:

  • Management
  • The Measurement and Reward Systems aspects of Organizational Design
  • The Coordination aspects of Human Resources.

Modified Michael Beer Model

While the impact of OLAP technology in each of the areas above is slightly different, each is related and shares a common trait: improvement in communication.  Utilizing OLAP tools to improve communication requires a broad audience for their utilization.  OLAP tools are traditionally utilized by analysts and managers.  In this model, front-line employees become critical users of the tool as well.  The wide-scale availability of web-based OLAP tools makes such organization-wide implementations cost-effective.

OLAP’s Impact on Organizational Effectiveness through Management
OLAP’s impact on organizational effectiveness through management is accomplished along traditional lines.  OLAP tools facilitate the achievement of organizational objectives by giving management a more complete picture of the organization and its progress toward those objectives.  Returning to the Dell example above, an OLAP tool can provide management with a quick and easy means for determining how employees are progressing on their required courses.  Departments lagging behind on completing courses could be set back on track.
OLAP’s Impact on Organizational Effectiveness through Coordination aspects of Human Resources
Michael Beer describes coordination as it relates to organizational effectiveness as:
“The extent to which employees coordinate their decisions and actions across departments, functions, businesses, and national borders to improve the enterprise as a whole.” (Note on Organizational Effectiveness, 6)
OLAP’s ability to impact organizational effectiveness from a coordination standpoint stems from its ability to align the actions of individuals at all levels of the organization with the organization’s mission. This is accomplished by demonstrating how individual performance “rolls-up” to organizational performance.
A primary purpose of organizational objectives is to prompt employee coordination of actions and decisions by providing a common target.  By relating these organizational objectives to individual employee actions, coordination of effort is increased.  The 90% customer satisfaction objective referred to earlier provides an example.  A well-designed OLAP cube could demonstrate to employees how quicker call resolution with no complaints leads to higher overall customer satisfaction.  If management has done a good job setting objectives that are aligned with the mission of the organization, employees can now see how their effort leads to improved organizational effectiveness.  This increased visibility of individual performance and its relationship to organizational performance should lead to increased coordination of effort.
OLAP’s Impact on Organizational Effectiveness through Measurement and Reward Systems
The greatest impact OLAP technology can have on organizational effectiveness is through its impact on measurement and reward systems.
OLAP’s Impact on Measurement and Reward Systems
A group of theories known collectively as Expectancy Theory stress the connection between effort and performance, performance and reward, and motivation.  As the name implies, the concept of expectation is Important to Expectancy Theory.  An expectation is an individual’s belief that an action on their part will lead to some particular result.  The most widely known version of Expectancy Theory, the Vroom Model, stresses two important expectations that effect employee motivation:
  • The expectation that effort will lead to performance
  • The expectation that performance will lead to reward (Vecchio, 185).
OLAP technology can help improve employee expectations in both areas as illustrated below.
Effort and Performance
OLAP technology can be utilized to reinforce the connection between effort and performance to employees.  The Vroom model postulates that the clearer the connection between employee effort and performance, the more likely it is that individuals will exert the desired effort.  By emphasizing this connection, an OLAP tool can contribute to increased effort.
An OLAP cube showing performance at an individual employee level provides a powerful link between effort and performance.  For instance, a company in a situation similar to the Dell example above may choose to implement a cube showing:
  • Total technical support calls
  • Total calls requiring a call-back
  • Total number of complaints
  • Number of minutes to resolve a call
  • Customer survey ratings of support representative performance.
Each of these measures could be tracked at an individual employee level across a variety of dimensions.  The OLAP tool could then be utilized to communicate to employees:
  • Their level of individual performance
  • Their performance compared to targets and to organization averages.
With such specific, tangible measures, individuals would have immediate evidence on how their daily efforts lead to performance.
The link between effort and performance is also related to the coordination aspects of effectiveness covered above.  As mentioned, an OLAP tool could be utilized to demonstrate to employees how their individual performance rolls-up into overall organizational performance.
Performance and Reward
OLAP technology can also be utilized to reinforce the connection between performance and reward.  In addition to emphasizing the connection between effort and performance as shown above, the Vroom model also stresses the importance of employee expectations regarding performance and reward.  Employee motivation may be adversely affected if employees do not believe that achieving a level of performance will result in reward.  OLAP tools can contribute to improved organizational effectiveness by making it clear that designated levels of performance will indeed lead to associated rewards.
While this capability can provide a powerful incentive, it is critical that rewards be structured properly.  Again, the main function of an OLAP tool in such a situation is to provide clear communication to employees of the link between performance and reward.  If such a link does not exist, that is if performance does not lead to reward, utilizing an OLAP tool to communicate information on a non-existent link may be detrimental.
In the customer support example, an OLAP cube could be designed displaying customer survey ratings of an individual support person’s performance.  A graphical indicator could show the level required to receive a performance bonus.
An employee could quickly see how increasing their performance leads to the achievement of the bonus.  In this manner, an OLAP tool can provide a clear indication of the link between performance and reward.
Motivation
Overall, the Vroom model makes the following point: the more clear it is to each employee that Effort will lead to Performance and that Performance will lead to Reward, the higher the level of employee motivation.  The role of OLAP technology in this process is to clarify to individual employees the relationship between Effort and Performance and between Performance and Reward.
Next Post…
In the next post, I’ll wrap up with a discussion on leveraging OLAP tools to improve employee Performance Feedback.

Written by TedWimmel · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Business Intelligence | 5 Comments 

The iPad and IT

February 26, 2010

On the day the iPad announcement was made, I wrote a post sharing my enthusiasm for the device.  Since that time, I’ve watched the Twitter community go out with its trash and praise for the device and Apple in general, I’ve talked about it with my friends, and I’ve listened around our own office.  The feeling is mixed on what this device will do to computing.  Here at thefuturevalueofbusiness.com, we also conducted a poll.  Here are our results:

As you can see, the results are a bit mixed, with the clear interpretation being that the iPad is just a giant iPhone (which was my vote by the way).  I’ve found it really funny that people think of this as a BAD thing!  I think extending the capabilities of the iPhone makes a lot of sense.  Giving me the ability to compose documents, prepare (and deliver) presentations, manage email and read web pages on a full size screen are major parts of my day.  As a matter of fact, I’m not alone in this.  John C. Welch (be careful if you Google him – he’s…a…how do you say it…”colorful”) an IT Director and long time writer/advocate of Macs wrote that nearly 90% of his employees are just heavy web and mail users.  He mused that this device would be great for road warriors and sales people alike.  He, like I, believes that this will not likely be the only device used by his people, but rather another complimentary device.  Now, John works for an advertising agency so his experience may not be like yours.  I do, however, believe that this device may become the primary device for the following groups of people:

  1. Busy Execs (which ones aren’t busy??) - especially those that are primarily reviewing company metrics, business plans, emailing, and traveling
  2. Salespeople – these guys and gals spend the majority of their time updating their CRM system, emailing customers, and delivering presentations written by someone else
  3. Road Warriors – I’ve spent enough time in airports to know that getting through security with that bad is a huge back killer…this would be a great alternative, especially for those consulting types where the work PC/laptop needs to remain at the client site.  No need to keep a second laptop with you during the week if you have an iPad
  4. Students / Teachers - University students and even high schoolers (and below??) will find this a great alternative to the laptop.  Less likely to get broken and more powerful then pen and paper.  Imagine if you are a grad student working during the day and going to school at night.  The iPad can stay with you all day and fits neatly into your existing  laptop bag  (I have this BIG idea for the paperless classroom too…if only!)
  5. Plant Managers / Ops Managers – Now that most ERP systems are on the web, I can see all of my daily production data on my iPad.  This would allow me to spend more time on the floor and still be able to answer any production/operational issues on the spot.

Notice, I did not mention IT, Accounting, Finance or Engineering.  These are traditionally very heavy users of a PC.  They are creating large spreadsheets, writing complex equations or programming all of those great apps that we use today.  They may WANT an iPad, but it’s not likely going to become a primary device for them.

So I fall somewhere into categories 1-3 above.  I’m still excited for the iPad release and plan to stand in line the day the 3G model comes out.  I’ll take pictures and let you know if it lives up to the hype.

- Jodie

Written by Jodie Heflin · Filed Under Featured, Technology | 4 Comments 

Business Intelligence in Utilities

February 25, 2010

A few weeks ago I posted some thougths on the future of Smart Grid and what it meant to the consumer.  In essence, my observation was that it may be BI for BI’s sake.  My musings were based upon a post from Bart Thielbar of Sierra Energy which were posted in Intelligent Utility.  He and I started trading some email, which led to a discussion on how Business Intelligence initiatives were being led at utility companies.  I’ve had some experience at FirstEnergy, Duke Energy (formerly Cinergy), AEP, and Southern Company.  Bart had just finished a survey of utility execs on BI.  Here’s what he found:

We compared notes and were both pleasantly surprised to find similar results.   Click here to read more about his findings.  Click here to see his post that started all of this.

(Note:  if you aren’t engaging in dialogue around the Net, you should.  You’ll meet some fabulous people along the way and gain more insight!)

Follow me on Twitter:  @LUCRUMinc

-  Jodie

Written by Jodie Heflin · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Business Intelligence, Featured | 4 Comments 

Mmmmm…cheesecake

February 24, 2010

I was sending a text message to my BFF Rose the other day.  She was suggesting the Cheesecake Factory for a celebratory lunch.  I wanted to respond in a way that let her know that my eyes were spinning as if I were in a cheesecake-induced, coma-like state and being led to my cheesecake master.  My response was intended to be “Mmmmmm….cheesecake”.  Thanks to my trusty iPhone auto-correct, the response came through as “Hmmmmm…cheesecake”.  Clearly a HUGE difference!  This response sent the message that I was thinking through the cheesecake option, though I had not yet settled on an opinion.  The only response that would’ve been worse was had it auto-corrected to “Ummmm…cheesecake”, which would imply, “Really?  You are thinking cheesecake?”

The whole cheesecake, text message snafu led me to think – HOW DEEP IS YOUR METADATA??  Consider the following:

  • Mmmmm = Yummy
  • Hmmmm = Thinking
  • Ummmm = Thinking

In your organization, how many variants do you have to the word Revenue?  It’s really the same thing:

  • Invoiced Revenue = Stuff we sent a bill for
  • Sales Revenue = Value of an order
  • Recognized Revenue = $$ added to the financial statements

As you start to build your data warehouse, you may run into the same issue.  How do you keep it all straight?  Certainly in a word document or in your requirements document you’ve created the definition.  But how accessible are those documents at the conclusion of the project?  How are they distributed to the end-users?  Are they in a user manual somewhere?  How often is that manual consulted?  When new reports are being created or new project teams are being established, are these documents reviewed at the beginning of the new effort?  If there is a conflict in the definition, whom should be called to resolve the dispute?  Sounding familiar??

LUCRUM partners with a great local company, Balanced Insight.  Balanced Insight makes a product called Consensusthat allows you to track your metadata, organize it, and build data structures to support it.  Imagine if you could produce a picture to show your customer how data is related.  This picture allows them to confirm that “you’ve got it!”.

Consensus also allows you to see how the terms are defined and interconnected.  Using a tool like Consensus allows you to set priorities and target the items that may “break” if a system is converted or taken off-line.  I can’t imagine gathering requirements without using this tool!!

I don’t know if it will save my next iPhone auto-correct issue, but it sure would be helpful.

-  Jodie

Written by Jodie Heflin · Filed Under Business Intelligence | 2 Comments 

LUCRUM and Central Clinic Partner-up

February 22, 2010

Central Clinic is expanding their services in 2010 and therefore requires an enhancement and modernization to their current system.  LÛCRUM Inc has been awarded a contract to provide consulting services focused on the Alcohol and Drug (AoD) Application for Central Clinic utilizing the program for client treatment history and billing/payor accounting.   The primary deliverables are focused on Universal Payer Changes, SQL Server Upgrade  and Application Enhancements.  LUCRUM and Central Clinic have partnered on other applications in the past and we look forward to continuing that partnership in 2010!

Written by JodyDetzel · Filed Under LUCRUM News | 1 Comment 

New Partner: TARGIT!

February 22, 2010

Have you heard of TARGIT?  TARGIT is a suite of BI Tools geared toward getting you to BI “in the fewest clicks”.  LUCRUM has always been a big believer in doing BI..Faster!  This suite of tools is a great tool in our toolbox.  We encourage you to learn more:  http://www.targit.com/Products/TARGIT_Suite.aspx

Written by Jodie Heflin · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Featured, LUCRUM News | 2 Comments 

Using OLAP to Improve Organizational Effectiveness – Part 1

February 21, 2010

OLAP tools have been widely available for years and are in use in a large number of organizations.  They are typically deployed as speedy, easy-to-navigate reporting tools.  With a little creativity though, this class of software can also be utilized in a very different manner.

As organizations struggle to communicate their objectives to employees and to align the activities of those employees with the objectives of the organization, they can get help from these same OLAP products.  OLAP software can help by providing the capability to:

  1. Improve management’s knowledge of progress on objectives
  2. Improve employee coordination on efforts to achieve objectives
  3. Communicate the link between employee effort and performance
  4. Communicate the link between employee performance and reward
  5. Improve employee performance feedback.

In this series of three posts, I’ll talk about the role OLAP tools can play in each of the areas above.  But first, I’m going to start out with an introduction to the concept of Organizational Effectiveness.  This introduction will give us a structure to frame the rest of the discussion.

I am not going to spend any time defining OLAP.  If you’re interested, check here and here for some background and definitions.

Organizational Effectiveness Defined

Effectiveness is defined as simply having the intended outcome.  In an organizational context, the intended outcome is the goal of the organization which is usually expressed in a mission statement.  The Hierarchical Definition of Strategy provides a framework for defining and explaining these concepts and I am going to use it extensively in these posts.

Hierarchical Definition of Strategy

Explaining organizational effectiveness requires a discussion of business strategy and the Hierarchical Definition of Strategy provides a simple framework for this discussion.  The Hierarchical Definition of Strategy is built on the concepts of Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics (Barney, 10).  I’ve drawn a simple figure below to help explain this model:

An organization develops its objectives based on its mission while strategies and tactics provide specific details regarding the attainment of these objectives.  In the Hierarchical model, the effectiveness of the organization can be determined by simply comparing actual performance to objectives.  Michael Beer summarizes organizational effectiveness in this manner:

“An effective organization is one capable of implementing its strategy … A strategy is implemented effectively when people and groups in the organization work in a motivated, skilled, and coordinated manner on the appropriate tasks.” (Note on Organizational Effectiveness, 10)

In other words, the effectiveness of the organization is determined by its ability to achieve its objectives.

Hierarchical Definition of Strategy – Example

An example will help to clarify these concepts and make them a little more concrete.  Dell Inc.’s Mission Statement is:

“Dell’s mission is to be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve.”

The high level nature of the statement, though necessary, makes it difficult for individual employees to apply it to their daily efforts.  At the next level of the strategy hierarchy, Dell management has likely developed Objectives that will lead to the achievement of this mission.  For instance, we can imagine that Dell has defined an objective to “Provide customer support with a customer approval rating of over 90%.”  This supports their mission of “…delivering the best customer experience…” and provides employees with a tangible performance target.

The final two levels of the hierarchy are related to execution.  Strategy is a means to accomplish an individual objective.  Continuing with our imaginary Dell example, the strategy developed might be “Deliver the fastest, most accurate technical support in the industry.”  This supports their objective in the sense that a firm delivering the fastest and most accurate technical support would very likely receive high approval ratings from customers.  Tactics are execution oriented and exist at the lowest level of detail.  In the Dell example, a tactic may be a requirement that all customer support personnel complete a certain set of technical and communication skill classes.

In the example developed above, Dell’s organizational effectiveness can be determined by comparing actual appraisals of their support services with their objective of a 90% approval rating.

Next Post…

Now that we’ve laid out some concepts and terms, we can move on to the heart of the discussion.  In Part 2, I’ll dive into the details and talk about how utilization of an OLAP tool can help an organization become more effective.

Written by TedWimmel · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Business Intelligence | 4 Comments 

Reducing Eye Strain While Programming

February 15, 2010

Do you spend 8-12 hours a day pounding on a computer? Do you have headaches, irritated eyes, blurry vision or fatigue?  Then you could be suffering from eye strain.

As a programmer, I spend a lot of time on the computer at work and at home. I was having lot of problems with my eyes. They hurt all the time and I always felt drained. The glare of the lights in the office was painful. My solution was to create a pair of computer glasses. I’ve been using them for 8+ years and could not be happier. I don’t wear glasses, but I want to keep my eyes protected and healthy. I went and had an eye exam and told the doctor about my problems. I worked with him on creating a pair of glasses tailored to my needs. He had a computer in his office and a kit that let him build test glasses with different lenses. I sat at his computer while trying different lens combinations. I chose lenses with a slight magnification to them. This allows me to use a smaller font to view more code on the screen, but it appears larger which helps my eyes. I also added an anti-glare coating to protect my eyes from the glare from lights and the monitor. The first time I put on the glasses I was amazed at how my eye instantly stopped hurting.

Since my first pair I have had another pair made. Since I am older, I needed a slight prescription, but they still work very well. I also added scratch resistant lenses since I carry them around a lot. I also wear my glasses in meetings since the glare from the light hurts my eyes. The glasses are not cheap (about $200), but well worth the money. Here are some other suggestions from around the web on reducing eye strain: 

  1. Take a break every hour to stretch your legs as well as your eyes. Look out a window and focus on far away objects. Close your eyes for a while.
  2. Keep your eyes hydrated. Dry eyes leads to irritation and strain.
  3. Get your eyes check annually to check for problems or if you need a prescription correction.
  4. Use high resolution LCD monitors. Adjust the brightness and contrast to a comfortable level.
  5. Use dual monitors and place them at different distances so your eyes have to refocus as you look at each monitor.
  6. Adjust your font size and type to one that is clear to you. Change out white background to a light shade of blue or other light color. White backgrounds are very harsh.
  7. Change the viewing distance of your monitor. Sitting to close causes eye strain. Move your monitor back and increase the font size.
  8. Don’t work with all the lights off. Can cause I high contrast between monitor and room. Dim lights if you have trouble with bright lights
  9. Use a TFT and enable Clear Type (or equivalent technology). Ensure it is also correctly tuned for your system using the Clear Type tuner.
  10. Limit your computer screen time when not at work.

Remember to take care of your eyes and happy coding. 

 - Jeff Rollins

Written by Jeff Rollins · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Featured | 2 Comments 

Predictive Analytics & Healthcare

February 12, 2010

As a follow up regarding my post yesterday on Predictive Analytics, I wanted to bring attention to an article that Wired Magazine had last November on a predictive concept for “Modeling Human Drug Trials – Without the Human.” Using similar concepts, as well as rules which were indeed put in place by PHD’s, these folks replicated human trials which had taken 7 years of study – in about an hour.  Yup, hit run on the computer, and an hour later the results popped up – which according to the article hit 2 of the 4 markers studied perfectly, the 3rd within an approved margin of error, and the 4th was just below the accepted margin of error.  Ok, the computer model took 2 months to setup, and 1 hour to run, but running this model in 2 months and 1 hour, compared with the actual trial which involved thousands of people, millions of dollars, and 7 years?  WOW, very very powerful, controverisal for sure, but very powerful.   Here’s the link for your reading pleasure. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_archimedes/…

Written by JodyDetzel · Filed Under Business & Leadership, Business Intelligence, LUCRUM News | 3 Comments 

Microsoft Predictive Analytics!

February 11, 2010

Data Mining. Predictive Analytics. Quick what comes to mind? Expensive. Complicated. Statistical PHD required. Right? Not anymore, I’m very excited that Microsoft has entered this field with SQL 2008, and it appears could make a big difference regarding time, complexity and cost associated with leveraging your historical data to predict future events related to your organization.

  • Which products will sell best in a down economy?
  • Who is likely to be a loyal customer, and who is not?
  • Which treatment would be the most effective for this patient?

Answers/predictive models based not upon gut instinct – but upon the facts derived from the very real treasure trove of data locked up in transactional IT systems. Very cool concept. It may not be an iPad – but I think Microsoft’s predictive capabilities will have a big impact on their intended market nonetheless, and I’m very excited to be a part of it!

Written by JodyDetzel · Filed Under Business Intelligence, LUCRUM News | 2 Comments 

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