When You Have Trust
October 28, 2008
The other day we had a technical team meeting where we were discussing access rights for a global solution that we have begun to implement but have a need to extend some functionality. Well, it gets complicated pretty quickly. To be honest, I started drawing out all the potential combinations of variables that can occur and I’m trying to lead the group through this thought.
Well, this one “rogue” guy (I think to myself) keeps bringing up an idea. I hear it but it doesn’t seem to make sense to me. So, I discount it and try to get the group to move on. He keeps bringing it up and won’t let it go. We all tell him that he sometimes has listening problems and to hang it up for a bit.
Does he do this? No. Not because he is really a “rogue” guy or because he enjoys making things difficult (I have encountered my share of these people), rather, James knows that he can trust the group. James feels the trust and sees it played out over time. James knows that the environment is mature enough to handle the truth. Remember that line, “You can’t handle the truth” from the movie A Few Good Men. There was no trust in that relationship - that is for sure!
James sticks to his guns and won’t let it go. He did so in an encouraging way, but forceful. Finally, it dawned on us that he was right. Had James not felt the trust, he would avoid the conflict by either shutting down and ceasing to contribute or becoming defensive; and we would not have the proper solution to the problem. Way to go James (you know who you are)!
By the way, I called him later that day and said thanks and that I appreciated the way he handled himself. I thanked him for putting the needs of the group ahead of the need for him to avoid unpleasant conflict. This was a highlight for both of us that day. We saved a few days time and money and walked away with a better solution for less money.
In a recent blog post I wrote “This is a key point (gaining trust) because without trust the team is guarded and people don’t share. A solid foundation of trust is necessary for any team that wants to be highly successful.” Conflict is a necessary part of a team. But healthy conflict doesn’t focus on people, rather it focuses on the topic at hand.
Did you ever experience a team that had conflict and someone when historical? Not hysterical, historical! You know; “…yeah, but remember when you did this and you said that and he said… and she said…” This is because there was a lack of trust. When this happens, people focus on defense and of course sometimes a good defense is a good offense. Other times they shutdown and withdraw. Either way, that conflict is not healthy.
Conflict + Trust is healthy debate and leads to innovation!
Conflict w/o Trust leads to murder (of at least one’s character).
Go find someone to Trust.
~ Scott
Business Intelligence, Done Right
October 14, 2008
Business Intelligence efforts often fail, not because of the technicians, but because of the disjointed relationships we (IT) have with the business. We fear relationships. We think that our investments and communications are a waste of time because we have a tremendous amount of downward pressure to deliver - so we start quickly and build according to some document that we substitute as face time with our partner. To fix this problem, we need to take the best part of our building experience as ITers and put that together with the best part of relationship management - skills that we often don’t posses, but are vital to successfully delivering value and meeting our partners expectations.
{more on “The Right Way” below}
Kimbal’s methodology calls for the segregation of the three layers of BI and this is fantastic. There are in fact three separate BI tracks that can and should run concurrently. The three tracks are:
1. Technical Architecture
2. Data Architecture
3. Application Architecture
After all, we need to make progress on the technical choices of architecture and tools. What is our environment like, what standard tools do we use, what is our technical strategy to frame and contain our BI effort?
At the same time, we need to start looking at our data. What data will we need to work with, what is it, how should it relate, where does it come from, how do we extract, transform and load it. These are considerations of the data architecture effort.
Again, at the same time, what level of innovation do we need to arrive at? How do we present this to the user and provide the desired interaction to help mine data to craft information.
Kimbal’s Methodology
This methodology is right on! It is triggered by and the scope is managed by the requirements. These requirements are derived from that box that is labeled “Program/Project Planning”. But it’s not enough, it’s not there yet! In my mind, this is a bit limited and really only addresses the “Go” portion of the project - to build. All too often, BI projects fail because of thing that are ‘above’ or before the Go. Here is what I have found to be the differentiating factors.
Requirements should be built from Strategy. Why are we building this BI application? What are the important questions that need to be answered? What is the value that these answers bring; are we making things better or faster or cheaper? A well formulated strategy addresses these questions and should manage the deliverables. When we rely on a set of requirements to build a BI solution, we are abstracted from the strategy and this is not good. When this abstraction occurs, we are removed from the business value and are relegated as a commodity…simply build to this specification.
However, strategy is not born without a birthing process. The birthing process consists of a couple of elements. The first is an alignment or a focus at most senior levels. If we can’t align on the true aspects of the business, we are forced to work in a vacuum and can, at best produce a solution that is severely slanted. This slant often caters to the loudest voice or the biggest ego. Worse, our solution is then forever raised in a silo that contributes to expensive growth and maturity with a limited enterprise appeal. If and only if we get this alignment, we are doomed to deliver value slices rather than holistic value.
This alignment is not enough. After we have a focus, we then have to dive deep within the organization to see what raw materials we have to work with. I refer to this phase as ‘Discovery’. Once we are aligned and focused on the business value, what do we have to work with? What data exists in what format and at what availability and quality?
To state this concisely, we have the following necessary phases that will lead us to success.
1. Alignment - A common focus with enterprise level buy in.
2. Discovery - An exploration to ascertain our resources and an evaluation to ensure it supports the common focus.
3. Strategy - The actual strategy that is an outcome of “What do you want” + “What do we have”.
4. Requirements - The plan of how to get there from here.
Now, we are ready to “Go” forth and multiply! We are ready to build! And we know what we are building (requirements) and how the effort will benefit the organization (strategy). We know what we really have to work with (discovery). And finally, we have those committed at the top who are committed at the deepest levels of the effort and will both support/defend the effort as well as ensure that its accepted and reused across the enterprise.
Putting it all together, let me suggest the following methodology…
Sometimes we are asked “Why are you just sitting there? Do something!” We need to rally and fight the urge to just do something. We need to change that around as ask “Why are you just doing something? Sit there” (and get focused, aligned, discover, produce strategy, birth requirements…then we can “Go” and do something excellent).
The difference between a commodity and a partner is the level of time you invest in the relationship.
Take the time to do it right and it will be celebrated!
The next series of blogs will outline the above components; alignment, discovery, strategy, requirements and the three team approach to building BI solutions. Feel free to shoot me some questions or thoughts you may have regarding these topics.
Enjoy the ride!
~ Scott Felten
The Data Governance Color Palette
September 24, 2008
It is no secret that people are different. My wife loves process and order. She is disciplined and pays attention to detail. I, on the other hand, love chaos and new things. I like to create and invent.
Then there are those accountant/analyst folks who love details and facts. Finally, there are those who are people people - the ones who pay careful attention to others and their feelings. True, these are simply attributes that we all have in varying degrees. But, it is no secret that we have some in big doses while others are very small.
So, what happens when governance groups are out of balance? What if we have a data governance group that is made up of ten people like me…loving new things and big visions with little to no attention to detail? Or, there are ten folks like my wife - loving processes and steps to implement. Not a whole lot of new out of the box thinking - but truly skilled in the art of process.
Also, imagine ten folks sitting on the data governance group that are those people people - they think of relationships and peoples feelings. Are these people going to be ‘enforcers’ of the rules and standards? Finally, how about those factual lovers? Can they implement?
We need to have a well balanced governance team that has the right amount of visionary ability plus the people needed to validate those ideas against facts and figures plus those important people people who can tell you how to craft that message and how to reach people plus those implementers, those who can frame the plan in all its glory!
Well, if you have been around governance groups at all, you have seen cases where the team is not well-rounded. There are just too many of the same type of people in the group - or one ‘attribute’ exists in a dominate individual which infects the entire team.
Consider the following:
Where the yellow are the folks who are visionaries, always thinking up new things, but don’t have much skill at details, working with people or process.
Where the blue are the folks who are based in facts and figures.
Where the red are the folks who are those people people.
Where the green are the folks who are highly skilled in the art of process.
I was thinking about these different attributes and what happens when we have an imbalanced group. What are the warning signs, what can we expect when we are unbalanced. In the above diagram, I list the three roles of governance at the top and the different attributes in the color bands. Crossing them are the things that seem to happen when that group is out of balance.
For example, I have seen this many times…a team that is unbalanced and mostly blue (based in facts and figures) spends lots of time to produce the “10 Commandments”, then they post them on the world for all to see. These are the folks who develop principles and standards with complete definitions and taxonomies. These become artifacts or works of art to hang up and be proud. But nothing happens after this? Why, because they needed the greenies!
Or take the unbalanced team in the yellow zone… lots of big ideas come from this team. We often see a tremendous amount of momentum out of the gate because they sold senior leadership who moved mountains to take advantage of these ‘game changing’ ideas. But, very soon their progress stops, more than stops - we simply never hear from those folks again. Why, because those ideas were not tested by the blue folks!
Another example is an unbalanced green team… they spend tons of time to put together standard operating procedures which stream line operations. But this group misses the mark because they didn’t have that spark that a yellow brings!
Finally, when those red folks who are so needed in the group are in the majority - we have to be careful that we don’t approach the governance from the touchy feeling perspective, where we may be more interested who’s feet we may step on.
I have only touched on four cells - there are twelve to consider. Think it through. We need all these attributes and need to have them in a balanced manner. Look for those warning signs and think about who is in your group. Do you need to bring about change? Start by knowing where you are, looking at where you have been, so that you can make those adjustments to take you where you want to go!
Happy Balancing!
~Scott Felten
LUCRUM Does Business Intelligence
September 23, 2008
LUCRUM does Business Intelligence
Well, what does that mean? What do we provide for our clients? What makes LUCRUM different that other companies who “do BI”? Why should someone call LUCRUM in the first place? What value does LUCRUM focus on? If I was on an elevator and someone asked what we do for BI, what would I say?
Well, depending upon the elevator ride…here is one paragraph for every three floors of a ride about what we at LUCRUM do in the business intelligence space.
We have a proven track record of creating and providing value to our clients because we are highly skilled in both the art of aligning senior leadership around a game-changing passionate vision - a vision that takes their organization to the next level - and the science of synthesizing systems and data from disparate data sources into a focused and leveraged answer to the organization’s most important questions.
We never stop asking how and why. We find that the true questions are often 5 levels deep. We operate at this level - at the most intimate levels, where answers cause real action that changes the course of the organization. And then we never stop asking where. We unhide the data throughout the organization by liberating, assembling and bringing it together in the right manner, at the right time, delivering it to the right people.
We strive to hide complexities and present the answers to those truly valuable questions in a way that enables executives make the most use of their time by pinpointing the problem (or success) quickly. This early warning gives them the competitive edge and allows them to adjust strategy and tactics before their competitors have a chance to react.
In essence - we deliver value in the form of time to our clients. In action this translates as an increase in the critical response time that our clients leverage to act correctly before their competitors, who then are left in the position of reaction.
My closing statements would be:
- Business Intelligence is 100% art and 100% science.
- Truth is never at the surface, its usually pretty deep - but worth the trip.
- Simplicity implies that complexity and intricacy are under control.
- Time is the most precious non-renewable resource on the planet!
Putting all this together - Your organization has very expensive data sitting around decaying as time goes by. What are the most important questions that when answered sheds light on actions that reduce risk, promote change or brings about exponential growth? Align these at the highest levels and don’t rest until you unhide the right data, connect the information and present to the right person at the right time!
BI - Business Intelligence or Bringing Innovation, Better Information, Best Ideas, Big Imaginations, Bold Image… Whatever it means to you, will either help you or your competition.
You decide!
~ Scott Felten
A Call To Action
July 15, 2008
One of the calls that nobody wants to get – “the ground beef you just purchased may be tainted with e. Coli”. But, isn’t it better to get that call — than find out the hard way that you shouldn’t have eaten the product? In this day of frequent product recalls, a local firm is doing a fantastic job of connecting with their customers and communicating with them.
During the recent recall during the recent 4th of July holiday, no less, a local grocer notified their customers in a variety of ways. They placed signs in stores in meat departments (but if you are in the store buying meat – chances are you may have already consumed the meat you previously purchased).
Thanks to their frequent shopper program, they were able to track purchases by customers who use the company’s loyalty card. This is normally used to track purchases to accrue fuel discounts, or receive coupons and discounts on future purchases. During the recent recall, they printed a message at the bottom of the receipt to customers whose history showed they may have purchased the recalled product (and instructed the checkout clerk to point out the notice to consumers). In other cases, they actually called customers who used the loyalty card to purchase the tainted product (what a great motivating factor for encouraging consumers to keep their card information updated!).
Obviously a phone call would be best - since there is a time dependent factor for many shoppers – who purchase and immediately use the meat they purchase – but register tape alerts are great for those who stock up and placed the meat in their freezer for later consumption. Better late than never.
Loyalty programs sometimes come under fire – “what is being done with the data?”
“Are they selling personal information?” “Why do I have to give up that information to get lower prices?”
Generally, however most retailers promise that any proprietary information is not shared and only aggregated item data is shared with their vendors. In today’s competitive environment, businesses continually strive to “focus on the customer” and make the customer “# 1” – and develop the strategies that put the customer at the center of their business. Doing so makes customer data increasingly important, with loyalty programs serving as a very effective way of capturing customer data.
Another benefit of customer loyalty programs is the ability to foster two-way communications with customers – this can be done by implementing an active customer feedback system and listening to customers. It not only provides a way to capture customers’ concerns, questions and complaints, but as described above, it can offer a great way to reach out to customers.
For now, I’m fostering two-way communications with my customers by meeting with them, and having conversations with them about how they are communicating with their customers – both internal and external. I’m learning a lot, and hopefully gaining insight into how we can best work with them to facilitate this process. Clearly “one size fits all” won’t be the right answer. By listening, and asking questions, we can make a lot of progress in jointly defining the solution. How are you communicating with your customers?
My Education at LUCRUM
July 15, 2008
It seems like it was just four months ago that I stepped through the doors on the 11th floor of the Harland Building. Wait…as a matter of fact…it was…. So four months ago I was recently accepted to Law School, had just finished up my job with my firm working for P&G and was looking forward to my future enslavement in the legal industry. (Nervously laughing at myself) At first I thought, cool…got some time to do nothing for a while. But after a week I got bored and started looking for something constructive.
I came across LÛCRUM, and saw they had a need helping out in Marketing. I figured why not, I was a business major at Xavier, had some marketing classes, and had just worked for a great marketing company in P&G. As a matter of fact I worked in Trademarks. Furthermore, I had worked in the Real Estate, Finance, and Legal industries as well as a behemoth fortune 25 in P&G. Yet I had absolutely no experience in the IT sphere, thus I saw it as a chance to diversify my skills, and perhaps gain a little wisdom.
Now I don’t have, and perhaps never will acquire the IT acumen which is on display at LÛCRUM, but when I started to look for a job in February, the crux of my decision was based on how much I could learn, how much knowledge I could gain. Though I still can’t, and probably never will be able write code, conduct an alignment session on the particulars of collaboration tools and by no means could attempt to spell BI, I have gained an appreciation for the service that we provide. I see the great importance to what we deliver, an in a small way, have reinforced why one of the central themes concerning The Future Value of Business is profit, (LÛCRUM). Oh, and the people here are tolerable as well. ?
Yet, the best thing that I leave with from LÛCRUM is, the appreciation and the understanding of the importance of our endeavor. To me, the meat of what we do here is getting the important information, to the right people, at the right time, so they can make the right decisions. For a person about to embark on law school this seems very pertinent. Being able to decipher the right information, from the wrong information, or even the more right information from the not as right information, is what separates the great lawyers from the not so great lawyers. Obviously I want to be the former instead of the latter. I guess I could call this LI Legal intelligence, instead of BI. However, unfortunately, in the legal field collaboration is a rarity, and at times a liability. Some things you just can’t change I guess. But I digress.
In this day in age, where technology enables copious amounts of information to literally be at your fingertips, it is now more paramount than ever to know what information is worth your attention and what’s not. Furthermore, the truth, I find, must often be found through rigorous and diligent search. Those willing to do the aforementioned are a rarity unfortunately. We accept readymade answers to our questions, and speed and convenience have replaced precision and clarity. Thus, we make our decisions on limited knowledge. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. This is exactly where LÛCRUM fills the gaps in information technology.
LÛCRUM’s leverage is making information fast and convenient, without losing clarity and precision. This will in turn make judgment more acute. LÛCRUM -clairvoyant, perhaps not, judgment, speed, and vision, absolutely. To me these things cannot be substituted.
And now I bid you farewell. I can only hope that my future in law will be as bright as I believe LÛCRUM’s future can and should be. It has been a fun few months for me, getting to know the people, the company, and being enlightened as I have. Wish me luck down in Miami, and perhaps, some Tuesday in the future, I will return to put my two cents in once again.
Putting your baby to bed :-(
July 10, 2008
Well, not a real breathing, baby food eating, diaper filling baby anyway. What I’m talking about it is retiring a system that you were also responsible for creating and implementing.
In the beginning, there was a problem. The problem was the client’s inefficiency in closing the financials and reporting said financials out to the masses. Enter LÛCRUM. LÛCRUM has a long history of solving complex data problems. LÛCRUM delivered an enterprise data warehouse that allowed integration of various financial systems into a single repository with a common vocabulary that facilitated timely financial reporting to the organization.
Fast forward 4+ years. The data warehouse keeps on chugging. It performs monthly financial closing processes admirably. Data is still integrated from numerous sources. People still depend on the “numbers” that come from their financial reporting. Enter “change”. The client has been acquired by another company. The buying company also has a data warehouse and decided to integrate the two together.
Before we can decommission the data warehouse, the financial processes need to be migrated. The buying company handles the development aspects of the migration to the new architecture and BI toolset; however the existing support team is the SME with respect to the existing system. Discussing, detailing, and discussing again the AS-IS requirements with the development staff explaining what has to be re-created, the certain business nuances to be aware of, performance and tuning considerations, and other “why’d you do it that way” discussions.
As with all systems reviewed in retrospect, you’re going to find some things that you’d might change if you could have a do-over, however for the most part, LÛCRUM’s EDW has stood the test of time and required very little enhancements/rework. Here are some observations that I believe resulted in a stable, high performing and well accepted data warehouse:
1. Implemented Ralph Kimball’s methodology.
2. Shielded the data warehouse from source system changes based upon SLA’s between the two parties. When the source systems underwent changes, they were responsible for maintaining a standard data submission format.
3. Shielded the BI tools from the underlying database tables. All interaction was through database views thus allowing the data warehouse to make modifications along the way that minimized downstream impacts.
4. Utilized an enterprise job orchestration tool. This allowed for interaction of various upstream and downstream systems in a packaged application capable of communicating with various system platforms.
5. Due to large data volumes, special attention was made to insure high performing interaction with data.
6. All “heavy” lifting of data was performed at ETL time resulting in simple SELECTs from the BI toolset. This prevented the client from being tied to a BI toolset.
7. An online meta data repository was utilized to allow users to understand what data was in the data warehouse and/or what a particular business term meant.
8. Visual production support processes were implemented that permitted the support team to be proactive in working through issues rather than being reactive to problems.
9. Extensive testing was performed during development and implementation. Unit, String, Regression, Performance, and User acceptance. Almost an obnoxious amount of testing, but well worth it in the end.
10. LÛCRUM built it! (Come on, you saw that coming didn’t you?)
Next steps are the decommissioning project. We are figuring out what data needs to be archived for potential future reference. Where will this subset of legacy data reside? How might it be accessed? What dependencies exist with the server architecture? What parties need to be involved (server operations, UNIX team, storage team, dbas, etc.)? How quickly can it be done?
All good things must come to an end. I am proud to say that I was a part of this initiative at the start as well as at the end. Our solution solved a problem. Now it’s someone/something else’s turn to reach up to the bar that has been set.
Time to start singing a lullaby…
Dave
LUCRUM RADIO: Episode 1, Doug Ross
June 12, 2008
Lucrum Radio is our new podcasting series. It will feature interviews and discussions with thought leaders in business and technology, providing a forum for sharing knowledge with the world.
Episode 1 of LUCRUM Radio got us off to a great start. It features an interview with Doug Ross, CTO of Western Southern Insurance. In the podcast, moderated by fellow LUCRUM employee Andy Erickson, Doug and I discuss topics such as collaboration technology, crowd-sourcing, organizational dynamics, the integration of IT and Marketing, and the role technology can play in differentiating an organization from the competition.
Give the podcast a listen, and let us know what you think…
Special Thanks to Doug Ross for his willingness to participate in the project, and for doing such an amazing job of delivering insightful, innovative thinking.
Recipes for Success
June 11, 2008
Using unique experiences to reach out to customers…. is the theme of a recent WSJ article that featured John Bostick, executive chairman of LUCRUM, and also President and CEO of dbaDirect. The article talks about how different small companies create unique opportunities to meet with their customers. The article was published on Friday, May 30, the very day after I attended one of John’s classes up at Jungle Jim’s in Fairfield, Ohio (another exercise in unique customer experiences - they have every imported food you never knew you needed ‘ 6 acres of food under one roof’ http://www.junglejims.com )_
The class I attended was called ‘Hot Thai Summer Sizzlers”. John prepared some wonderful Thai dishes, and Jim Hennessy showcased several unusual beers that enhanced the flavors of the food (except for the Paulaner Heffe - beer and clove are not good flavors in beer, in my opinion!). In the class, John prepared and discussed the origins of many of the exotic dishes he was preparing, but in an easy to understand and appreciate manner - demystifying many otherwise exotic dishes and convincing me that just maybe I should try this at home sometime. Everything was delicious, and while, a few offerings were too spicy for some of the attendees - don’t say he didn’t warn you about the peppers! - the different beer offerings were a great way to ‘cool the palate’. Several LÛCRUM customers and their family members attended, and as the WSJ article discussed, it was a great way to get to know people outside the normal business environment. John and I both share the common experience of having worked for IBM, and are rooted in the belief that ‘people buy from people they like’. So, having the opportunity to get to know our customers in a more relaxed environment is something ingrained in us, starting with our days at ‘Big Blue’. The best testimony to the value they received from the class is the number of folks that were signing up for the next class! - Obviously, it was an enjoyable, informative session.
Just like trying new foods and beers can provide an enjoyable experience, trying new business offerings and concepts can also lead to a positive experience. For example, one of the offerings that is unique to Lucrum is our ‘Strategic Alignment Session’. Using a guided methodology, our consultants facilitate sessions for customers - taking them on a journey - starting at the beginning, and discussing their history (which quite frequently, everyone has a slightly different recollection of!), and using that shared history to guide the participants on the journey, resulting in a shared experience, mutual goals and ways to achieve those goals. These sessions are one of those things that you just don’t fully appreciate until you’ve actually observed, participated in, or spoken to someone about. I sat in on one session during my first weeks with Lucrum, and was impressed by the way our consultant (Eric Duell, in this case) led a diverse customer group at a local chemical firm through this process as they attempted to design a new customer pricing system. In the past few months, Eric has conducted sessions for 2 of my customers - both in very different businesses - one, a large financial institution, where we helped an off-shore firm develop a new sale and marketing plan. And then most recently, we drove a few hours north and used this same process with another custom in the non-profit sector, bringing together a very diverse group including marketing, IT, creative, and education departments, resulting in a new vision for a major website re-design for their institution.
In both instances, there were participants who walked into the session, thinking “this better be good, they convinced me to give up 2 days (or 2 - ½ days) of my time”. By the end of the first session, or even sooner, you could see that their impressions had changed, and they were eager participants in the process - and walked away from the sessions with a new vision and ideas on how to lead their organization through the next phase of their business plan. And, some were even ready to ‘sign up again’ for more sessions - to utilize this process in other aspects of their business.
Taxonomy: It sits in the critical path of …
June 9, 2008
Where is the excitement around this issue?
It seems that “Taxonomy” was my word for the week. This is my third post about it within 7 days. It’s not that I am in love with the word, rather, it’s just pretty darn important! With any big initiative, the first thing we look to is a solid foundation for communication. Think about it, we usually address taxonomy anywhere from casual discussions to formal governance groups for many initiatives – dare I say any initiative that strives to bring real change to an organization begins with taxonomy (either consciously or subconsciously). Thinking it through, here are some of my top-of-mind game changers that require a solid taxonomy:
• Master data management. By definition this is really an enterprise taxonomy that is the official reference data for an organization.
• Metadata management. Tagging data with information is best performed only after a taxonomy is well-established. Else, with-what-shall-I-tag-it plagues the process.
• Business Intelligence. Without a proper taxonomy, how do we bring together people from diverse business perspectives together to understand data from a central and enterprise viewpoint?
• Data Management. Well, of course we can’t properly manage data without knowing where things are in a hierarchy or what context the data should exist in.
• Data Quality. Here we are really measuring data against the taxonomy; whether implicit or explicit.
• Governance. Strategic decisions are made for specific purposes and they need to rely and depend upon a socialized and accepted taxonomy.
• Data Stewardship. This is the process of holding someone accountable for making tactical decisions to implement strategic direction.
• BPM. When we look to manage business processes, they depend upon real information. So, having a taxonomy to base these data points is crucial.
• SOA. Reusing software components and exposing them at the enterprise level demands a highly accepted understanding of the organizations data. Sure, this view is exposed as a group of web services that are published in a repository that is self aware – but without a canonical data model as your underlying foundation, consistency is not reached. A canonical data model is highly correlated to a mature taxonomy.
• Strategy, Solutions and Architecture. It’s near impossible to calibrate these three without a friction free flow of communication. Let’s not talk about what should’a, could’a and would’a – but let’s focus on the business problem at hand. Having a living taxonomy that is socialized, accepted and part of our DNA is key to gaining quick momentum as we put distance between us and our competition.
These are just some quickies that I bubbled up. What other initiatives need a solid taxonomy? Thinking about taxonomy, when you look to bring real change to an organization, what happens? From my experience, there are two choices:
1. Address taxonomy early and often. Realize that there are some things that are so important that we need to establish, socialize and enforce them.
-OR-
2. Jump to build a solution. Then realizing there are terms misaligned, misused and duplicated, go back and either fix the data models (and all subsequent diagrams and code – this rarely gets done) or create a lot of code to hide these issues. When we do this, we establish a short term brittle foundation that breaks when the next change comes or we end up with a bunch of custom spaghetti that tries to tie things together but really ends with just a lot of confusion.
Bottom line
• Embrace taxonomy within your natural collaboration style. When something is unclear, pause, ask, record, check for understanding, agree on the outcome and move forward. It’s not a development phase, don’t sell it to senior management. No one cares about it. It’s an expected minimum of doing business. Add it to your culture’s DNA.
• Don’t underestimate the issues when terms are not aligned. It wrecks havoc to your foundational infrastructure and the costs (both hard and soft) can be big. Know it is there and plan for it.
• Scope your risk. If you are working within a group or team, the risk is small. Plan for it and cross it off your list as you develop it. However, if you are aligning silos or working across divisions or bringing others into alignment, or working cross-culturally, or introducing new teams, these issues can be big. Again, plan for it – put someone in charge of its care and feeding.
• Use it as a way to create excitement and ownership. Once you work together, it is always good to look for accomplishments to celebrate. Depending upon your scope, it can also be a way to generate a new level of buy-in. Manage the group right and they walk away with the justified feeling that they had part in it – that they created it and it reflects their slice of the business. Trust me here – then they will socialize it and ensure that its followed in their domain!
Now that is exciting stuff!
~ Scott Felten
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