Part 2, Collaboration Tactical Verticals – expanded! (Statement 10)
June 17, 2008
Highly optimized teams perform at high levels – their productivity exceeds the sum of the parts. Moreover, each member contributes at a higher level and becomes more productive. Of course they also feel more committed and take pride and ownership of accomplishments. If done right, the team is the vehicle to bring game-changing, record-breaking innovations to market!
It’s no wonder that the investment in teams is the single best investment!
Gartner predicts that “by 2008, 50% of individual performance will be determined by the individual’s participation in projects and other collaborative work. This will cause an accelerated demand for collaboration, informal project coordination, social networking, expertise location and social process support technologies.”
It is now a business minimum to monitor activities on an almost 24/7 basis – just watch your spouse on vacation try to put away that blackberry! With travel costs soaring (gas prices), we are now relying more on mobile technology, web conferencing and high-resolution videoconferencing – especially as our virtual teams become the norm, expanding across time zones, and national, linguistic and enterprise boundaries.
The needs are real, very real. And if not met properly, shadow IT steps in to fill that need. The result…email grows out of control to morph into some kind of collaborative document repository, and source for best practices and even stretching to perform workflow. There are also non-coordinated initiatives in play that lead to multiple standards and duplication of costs and efforts. At some point, these will need to be reconciled. It is not different then the company that allows master data management to consist of enterprise level spreadsheets to hold data in a persistent manner. Yikes!
Lets start by stating the need that your success will depend upon the appropriate standardization and scoping of the collaboration stack. I view it as a 2 dimensional thought. The first dimension is strategic – it’s the enterprise level (horizontal) of collaboration. This is the level that everyone (knowledge workers, that is) in the organization is aware of and has come to depend upon. This builds upon the intranet concept, bringing to the organization additional corporate-wide tools. This is a good step in changing the corporate’s culture – but that is another blog yet to be written. The second dimension is the title of this blog “tactical verticals”. This is the ability to scale collaboration services ‘when the time is right’. Better said, when initiatives exhibit different configuration of characteristics, then there is a corresponding configuration of collaboration services. Hopefully, these are kept to a few in number and truly driven by need.
It’s always good to start at the foundation. So, lets group collaboration a couple of ways and list out our potential services. There are web-based and non-web based technologies”
Web-based collaborative technologies: Email, Web Conferencing, Team Sites, Document Versioning, RSS Reader, Forums, Chat, IM, Surveys, Shared Calendaring, Social Software, Knowledge Mgt. Systems, Blogs, Wikis
Non-web based collaborative technologies: Telephony, Faxing, Voice Mail, Video Conferencing, Workflow, Project Mgt. Systems, Code Control
But, lets group them by functional capabilities:
Electronic Communications
PC Based eMail
Mobile eMail
Wikis
Community Sites
Team Sites
Document Versioning
Blogs
RSS Reader
Electronic Conferencing
Forums (message boards, discussion groups)
Online Chat
Instant Messaging
Internal Survey Tools
Web Conferencing
Collaboration Management
Electronic Calendars
Workflow Systems
Knowledge Management
Social Software Systems
What are your next steps…? There are many angles to consider, but for this blog (tactical verticals), I would suggest:
* Take inventory of your current toolsets
* Determine who owns ‘collaboration’
* Decide upon a horizontal enterprise-wide standard
* Develop tactical vertical attributes (when do you need IM, voting, work flow, wikis, etc…)
* Configure a collaboration stack for each scenario
* Perform a gap analysis (what do you need that you don’t have)
* Determine standards (products/technologies/best practices) for each
Take the next steps…look at:
– Value
– ROI
– Current Culture
– Transitioning
– Marketing
– Etc…
Having tactical verticals ensures that you can scale your collaboration stack when you need to – the goal here is to match the team’s need with the appropriate technology. Simply allowing everyone access to everything may introduce the wrong controls and lead to chaos and confusion. You have one shot at this – you can’t un-ring the bell! Once these tools are embedded in people, processes and technology, they are hard (if not impossible) to remove. The key to consider is to keep your options few, so that you don’t end up with a dozen different configurations to manage. Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration
Good Luck!
~ Scott Felten
Part 2, Collaboration Definition! Expanded. (Statement 1)
June 17, 2008
“Consensus is the lack of leadership!” – Margaret Thatcher. I am in total agreement with that statement. As a matter of fact, I absolutely love it and have lived by it for many years. Question: Is collaboration simply a way to gain consensus? If so, then is it valid to say that “Collaboration is the lack of leadership”? I say, yes…and no!
Definition “People working together on creative, non-trivial issues that requires deep thinking and an exchange of ideas in an iterative and cumulative manner by domain experts.”
I will try to state this as simply as possible and demonstrate why “Collaboration may or may not be the absence of leadership”.
But first we need to understand teams. So, let’s look at team dynamics (attributes of a team). If you have read any of Jon Katzenbach’s books (The Wisdom of Teams and Peak Performance, as well as Real Change Leaders and Teams at the Top), you will walk away with a better understanding about the various aspects of teams.
There are 3 dimensions to any team.
• The Challenge – Business problem to be solved
• Work Style – Type of work, level of communication
• Leadership Approach – Applying the right leadership style
The type of business problem dictates the work style and leadership approach for the team.
Coordination-oriented Teams.
Is the business problem familiar to the organization, is it based on a known process and is it time sensitive? This dictates a team of highly specialized experts in their domains, working individually on their part of the solution and time is the driving factor. Coordination is key for this type of team. It is lead by a leader that coordinates individual contributions. In this case, the collaboration level is not as deep. It may be a common repository for terms and reference documents as well as the place where final deliverables are held and project plans are maintained. Often times the implementation of this level of collaboration is tactical – the company sets up a base set of collaboration features for ‘any team’ – its just the standard corporate collaboration configuration.
In the case, collaboration is simply a minimum level of service offered by the organization – a strategy set awhile ago. Here, consensus may in fact be the lack of leadership; as the type of business problem and work style demands a high degree of individual leadership. Here the leader needs to be the main broker of communication; keeping track of the project’s schedule and deliverables. Here the leader would make decisions (of course a good leader always seeks advice). I would agree that on this end of the spectrum, collaboration may be the lack of leadership. In this case, poor leaders may fall in to the trap of allowing the group to lead.
Collaboration-oriented Teams.
However, if the business problem you are trying to solve is unfamiliar to the organization, it is likely that your team will need to invent new processes. In this case, while time is certainly a factor, the best solution takes priority (implementing a poor solution in this case is disastrous). For these team attributes, collaboration is key. This type of team often shares in the work and often rotates leadership responsibility as domain experts lead discussions. Here the team is mission lead. All team members work collectively and share information at a high velocity. In this case, the collaboration level is deep. It may have custom designed work flows and voting/survey tools. Each member is available via online chat. Document management with versioning and edition features are enabled. There is a high velocity of meetings handled by web conferencing. Also the use of wikis and team electronic calendars are priority 1 – so that the mission continues!
In this scenario, collaboration is tactical – it is deployed because the business challenge demands a high velocity of collective work – a high degree of communication and thought sharing. In this case, the role of the leader rotates as people. Here collaboration is not simply gaining consensus, rather here collaboration is leadership!
I have painted both ends of the spectrum. The truth is always in the middle. Keep in mind that during the different lifecycles of a project, your team dynamics will ebb and flow from individual coordination to team collaboration. The trick is to choose a level of collaboration that will scale to your need! More to follow! Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration.
Happy Collaborating!
~ Scott Felten
13 Statements about Collaboration – each less than 143 characters!
June 11, 2008
I was thinking about two things today…Collaboration and Microblogging. So, I mashed them up a bit here. I outlined in 13 parts, my thoughts about collaboration. I pasted them here in a microblogish format and they form an outline. Over the next couple of weeks, I will post a blog dedicated to each “Part” – for those of you interested in one person’s experiences. Feel free to comment me up! Here goes…
Statement 1, “Collaboration Definition!”, “People working together on creative, non-trivial issues that requires deep thinking and an exchange of ideas in an iterative and cumulative manner by domain experts. Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Definition!”
Statement 2, “It’s not about technology!”, Technology is simply a dimension around an implementation method-they come and go. A great idea is to slice your bread – who cares about the toaster, until you want toast! Click here for part 2 of “It’s not about technology!”
Statement 3, “Collaboration Success!”, Real Success – The art of understanding your corporate culture and how to transition them to a focused sprint of collaboration to solve the problem extracting real value.
Statement 4, “Collaboration Transition!”, Transition your company’s conduct, habits, culture and management. Encourage the deeper level of communication. First expose the real business goals and objectives!
Statement 5, “Collaboration Accountability!”, Establish a clear level of accountability – one person who is tasked to demonstrate the value that collaboration brings. So, IT and Business alignment is mandatory!
Statement 6, “Collaboration Value Alignment!”, Make sure that you revisit with the sponsor(s) often to ensure that the value they expect is in fact the value you are working towards. Business changes, adapt your plan! Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Value Alignment!”
Statement 7, “Collaboration Attributes!”, Choose attributes; re or pro action, rich features or limited set, centralized control versus distributed, technology controlled behavior or community managed.
Statement 8, “Collaboration Scope!”, Apply collaboration to the enterprise, LOB, business unit, workgroup, or even a business process. Suggestion: Horizontal Strategy + Tactical Verticals.
Statement 9, “Collaboration Horizontal Strategy!”, Determine an enterprise level of depth that addresses higher level issues across the organization. General company dialogs at this level promote a culture change.
Statement 10, “Collaboration Tactical Verticals!”, Analyze your company and look for deep level collaboration needs. They usually center around master data items, governance groups, departments, teams or initiatives. Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Tactical Verticals!”
Statement 11, “Collaboration Business Processes!”, Setting up collaboration at the business process level provides maximum value because its focused on a real need while cutting across the enterprise to involve others.
Statement 12, “Collaboration Business Processes – warning!”, Make sure to determine the right-level collaboration strategy before actually embedding it into the business process, least they become dependent upon one another.
Statement 13, “Collaboration Business Processes – Challenges!”, Different locations and time zones, clear exception handling, management coordination of shared processes and working across political boundaries.
Cheers!
~Scott Felten
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
Taxonomy: How can I get one of them?
June 3, 2008
“I’ll have one Taxonomy, a Diet Coke and some fries please!” Today things are fast-paced, sometimes too fast. Ready, Fire, Aim! is all too common. However, when building a taxonomy, it needs to simmer for a bit and let all the flavors come together. We are building something of substance here. So, where do we begin? Here is a little prep work to consider before you begin.
As in anything of substance, look towards your ancestors! Before beginning new journeys, look at the travels and teachings of the ancients. Once upon a time, in a land far far away, things were very expensive and the littlest of changes translated into huge dollars. The ancients lived in those lands and had to navigate through the treacherous waters of high hardware costs, outrageous communication costs, high people costs, massive lines of expensive code and hidden dependencies. In this land, things were new and every notion of business had to be created. In this time, the people who inhabited that land had to use their brains, all the time. There was no drop and drag. There were no visual approaches and pre-established templates. Things had to be thought through in great detail and time was spent on foundational issues…because if we don’t do it right from the beginning, it will be bad, very bad.
So, pull out that old book in your company and turn to that portion that equates to Leviticus – read about your Moses, who came down from the mountain with the law…what was good, what was not. Listen to those stories of old and take stock. It is said that history repeats itself. Why not leverage what’s been done and what’s been done with a rigor that I would say is not the norm of today.
Turn around right now and look at the shelf behind you. There, in the corner, you see it? There’s a book (or two) right there – yes, it’s the 3” black binder that has dust all over it. Take it down, offer a quick thanksgiving and open it slowly. Spend some time with the ancients and understand where you came from – you may just stumble upon truths so great that they make your hair white. At the very least you will walk where the great ones walked and who knows maybe you can point the way to the Promised Land!
You never know where you will find gold – roll up your sleeves and start digging around!
~ Scott Felten
Taxonomy: When you take the ‘text’ out of ‘Context’, you are left with a ‘Con’!
June 3, 2008
I have a friend who is a true genius. He has a PhD from Harvard University in Organic/Inorganic Chemistry. He also taught there for awhile. He met and married a very intelligent scientist from Mexico and they had three children. They thought that they were going to have developmental problems with their oldest – or at least that is what the doctors told them. You see, their oldest son did not speak right away. As a matter of fact, when their son was 1, then 2 then 3 years old and not speaking – they would take him to the doctors and the prognosis was the same, he was developmentally behind.
Then while he was 3 years old he spoke his first words. His mother told me this way. So, it was lunch time and ‘my son’ turned to me and said…now remember, this was his first words… “Mommy, may I have some lunch please”? She was shocked and of course very relieved. At the next doctor’s visit, she told the specialist the story. After looking at all the facts, the doctor described things as… Well, you son is very bright and a perfectionist. He was living in a multi-cultural home where both English and Spanish was spoken. Before he chose to communicate (with words), he had to fully understand the framework of grammar and its nuances. Then, he had to work through the process of selecting his base language (will it be English or Spanish).
Fast forwarding the story a few years finds ‘their son’ in first grade. Upon completion of further testing, they found that he was in the top 99.999 percentile in math – among college aged men and women.
This story is not much different than some of the issues we face each day with our clients. More times than not, each team, group, department speaks a different language. I’ll never forget the time where I was asked to develop a strategy for a recognized revenue solution – where they wanted to better align revenue, cost and time to properly manage cash flow and reporting. I was working directly for the CFO and one of the requirements was a report that grouped data as follows, she called it ‘The Region Report’:
- New Business
- East Division
- West Division
- Canada
- P&G
The solution was an education on taxonomy. As mature as this company was, they did not operate with a known taxonomy. Much like my friend’s son choosing not to speak until he fully understood what the framework was and how a taxonomy carried made the context known to both sides, I worked to help define the common taxonomy. Once we did this, we were rocking. This application became on of the strongest points in the organization, because we built a foundational canonical model around a true taxonomy that we socialized. This really became the hub of all data points and drove both master data efforts as well as metadata disciplines.
Looking back, it seems obvious and if you did your job well, this should be the case. Can you guess as to the structure in my oversimplified snippet of a real issue?
The above was decomposed to:
- Country (is a parent of region)
- Region (belongs to Country and is a parent of SVP)
- Senior Vice President (works within a Region and is the parent of a VP)
- Vice President (works for a SVP and owns one or more clients)
- Client (is owned by one or more (many to many) VPs and has a status of Type)
- Type (describes the client and consists of either ‘New’ or ‘Established’)
Also, we have the notion of a date for transactions as well as a time-based dimension for SVP, VP, Client and Type – so people, clients and type can reflect ownership movements.
It might seem painful to go through the rigor and discipline of establishing and socializing a true taxonomy, but its worth it. It’s not much different than building a house on solid rock…why rush and build things on sand. Don’t fall for a ‘Con’ – make sure your text resides within the proper context!
Happy Building,
~ Scott
BI Maturity: You can’t get there from here!
May 20, 2008
I spent last weekend fishing with my father, brother and nephews. Since they live in Connecticut and I in Ohio – we decided to meet half way – somewhere in “The Alleghenies and Her Valleys” to quote the brochure. While I usually rely on my trusty Magellan GPS, I had given it to my oldest daughter to borrow as she was driving south where the weather is warm. So that left me driving through the mountains and her valleys around midnight. Driving through a small town on a small road, looking for a very small park proved more than a challenge. Since I have three daughters and one wife, I have learned to swallow my pride and ask directions. I did, but on my walk in to the “Sheetz” gas station, I was thinking they might give me that response…”Well, you can’t get there from here – you gotta go somewhere else, then loop back around to get there.” However, I received perfect directions! Thank you Mr. Sheetz!
But that got me thinking as I stumbled upon a poster from the TDWI folks that spoke about BI maturity and adoption. It was a few years old, but some things are so true. I was excited to see that old friend and took some time to write up my thoughts on the matter – as well as capture their context. You can visit their poster ’2005 BI Maturity Model’ at http://www.tdwi.org/publications/display.aspx?id=7288.
In case you are wondering how I am going to tie the first two paragraphs together, here goes. From my experience, when senior leadership learns of the value that BI can bring, they really want to ‘get this thing going’. They want to launch a large, comprehensive, enterprise-wide, based-on-the-new-tools, BI innovation that will hit home runs and win ball games. Well the problem is that you can’t get there from here. 
There is a progression that must happen. Farmers can’t just throw seed on the ground and expect to make a profit - there is work to be done to prepare the soil correctly, then lots of care and feeding, praying for rain (but not too much rain) and then F I N A L L Y –> the harvest!
TDWI states that “Most organizations go through six stages when evolving their BI environment from a cost-center operation to a strategic resource that drives the business and shapes the market.”
Using their framework, here is how I break it down…
1. The Beginning (TDWI calls it ‘Prenatal’): Since this is mostly financial, there are a medium amount of standards and not much flexibility. The control is dictated from finance or finance needs. Causal users account for most activity. Power users may make use of this type of information and leverage it into their own ‘shadow’ systems. The problem is that there is a large IT backlog for these reports. The problem here is the information gap – we get the information after the decision had to be made. This decision latency could contribute to the wrong direction as the data it is built on is often not fresh. However, at this stage, a general ‘awareness’ exists – there is at least the existence of the correct information. To get here, there is a larger initial investment and costs are high as economies of scale are not yet a reality.
- Architecture: Management Reporting
- Scope: System
- Type of System: Financial
- Analytics: Paper Report
- User: All
- BI Focus: What Happened?
- Executive Perception: Cost Center
2. Army of One (TDWI calls it ‘Infant’): Lots of flexibility and not any standards to speak of – other than what is negotiated from one user to another. People think local and resist any global initiatives. Causal users use decline, while power users step in to take advantage of this new information. Still, power users are reliant on IT to set the stage for their data and IT continues to struggle with a backlog of requests. As we extract the right data and manually assemble it to address business problems, there is an understanding of what factors are leading to what business results. Cost are somewhat low as analysts are using their own tools and working with certain data sets extracted by IT.
- Architecture: Spreadmarts
- Scope: Individual
- Type of System: Executive
- Analytics: Briefing Book
- User: Analyst
- BI Focus: What Will Happen?
- Executive Perception: Inform Executive
3. Working as a team (TDWI calls it ‘Child’): Flexibility is somewhat high, but at this point is waning as people within the department begin to work together. But still not many standards to speak of – other than what is negotiated from one user to another or driven from within the department. People still think/act from a local perspective and resist any global initiatives. Causal users use starts to trend up to take advantage of some individual benefits provided to them at the department level. Once the organization deploys data marts based on the emerging standards, the BI environment becomes a self service type, where the bottle neck that once existed within IT has been removed. At this stage, an understanding of why things have happened is occurring because knowledge workers are using analytical systems to extract data to their own needs and using that data to draw conclusions about business events. Costs begin to creep a small amount as some technology is purchased, but overall not a big factor.
- Architecture: Data Marts
- Scope: Departmental
- Type of System: Analytical
- Analytics: Interactive Report
- User: Knowledge Worker
- BI Focus: Why Did It Happen?
- Executive Perception: Empowers Workers
4. Thinking bigger (TDWI calls it ‘Teenager’): Flexibility starts to fade as division wide standards arise. People see the need to work together and are driven by common divisional goals. Here there is an atmosphere of negotiation and consolidation as these standards are built out. Now causal user use is on the rise, as the wide standards lead to increased reliability on the data available within the BI ‘system’. Power users use remains flat; but their ideas are rolled back in to divisional solutions; they are seen as subject matter experts and are often tapped to provide leadership and direction for their domain. The focus here is customized delivery at the divisional level; dashboards, scorecards, report cards and the like. At this stage, managers are making use of the divisional wide dashboards and are given real time information that is actionable – what is happening right now. Costs are rising as we work within the division to develop standards and customized delivery.
- Architecture: Data Warehouse
- Scope: Division
- Type of System: Monitoring
- Analytics: Dashboard
- User: Manager
- BI Focus: What Is Happening?
- Executive Perception: Monitor Processes
5. Mature (TDWI calls it ‘Adult’): Standards are formed at the enterprise level. Governance groups are now formal processes with the proper structure and sponsorship. Senior level support is solid. Although flexibility takes a dip at first as the organization learns, flexibility then trends up as efficiencies and learnings are gained. Truly people are planning globally to act local at this stage. At this stage, executives are also onboard as the mature BI environment serves to align all players within the organization. The causal users use the system to help them understand what they should be working on and how their efforts affect the organization as a whole. The delivery mode transitions from a divisional perspective to the enterprise but is also balanced; balanced or cascading scorecards are the focus of the organization and serves as the single point of truth to answer the questions about our goals and progress towards them. At this stage, executives are using the BI environment as a communication tool to both align the organization on goals and objectives as well as communicate the results and current situations. These pivotal points are balanced all the way through the organization and are socialized in a manner that is equal to business strategy. The balanced or cascading scorecards open up alternative decisions as all indicators that lead to a ‘score’ are actionable. Costs rise again because of the enterprise level investment and collaboration, but the value should increase dramatically.
- Architecture: Enterprise Data Warehouse
- Scope: Enterprise
- Type of System: Strategic
- Analytics: Cascading Scorecards
- User: Executive
- BI Focus: What Should We Do?
- Executive Perception: Drive The Business
6. Harvesting Relationships or Partnerships (TDWI calls it ‘Sage’): Leveraging the mature BI environment by opening up that business service to clients is the last stage. Here standards and control continue to be formed, but originates from client relationships. Flexibility is also harvested as new ideas, thoughts, concepts are embraced by the mature BI environment. At this stage, our BI environment can now be thought of as a BI Utility for our customers; helping them to solve their business problems by making use of the organization’s rich and focused information in the form of customer focused solutions deployed to help build or bind relationships, thus increasing the value proposition to them by the organization. At this stage, the BI Utility becomes a needed part within the customer’s infrastructure (whether it be for a single customer’s need for specific and unique information or for a company with complex business processes). Costs take a dip, the data/information infrastructure is in place and the capital expenditure has been amortized. Tools already exist to develop rich applications. The value increases exceedingly abundantly here, as a very narrow scoped application brings a deep penetration of partnership.
- Architecture: Analytical Services
- Scope: Inter-Enterprise
- Type of System: Business Service
- Analytics: Embedded BI
- User: Customer
- BI Focus: What Can We Offer?
- Executive Perception: Drive The Market
Now that you know… Where do you see your organization? How can you actualize the next stage? What are some value statements that you can take to senior leadership? What business problems can you address? What type of socialization strategy will work best? Where should you invest and what will the return look like? Who can you trust to help you get there from here without shortcutting the maturity journey – proper growth is built on a series of solid foundations. These sucesses are the underpinnings of the needed BI elements; Trust, Vision, Focus, Value, Momentum…repeat.
Happy Maturing!
Scott Felten
When Life Gets in the Way of A Great Blog Post
May 15, 2008
If you’ve read any of my previous postings, you know that I put a lot of thought and detail into each of my blogs. I have to say sorry that I’ve missed you all lately, but life has started to get in the way. I have several partially complete. But then…
This week – Urgent priorities with my new client, Ipsos, and other major client needs are driving my time. I also have a member of my team in town from Newfoundland.
Last week – I started to come up to speed with Ipsos and had meetings all day each day.
Prior week – I was finishing my Data Strategy/Architecture role with Kroger which required me to max out each day.
But, at night… Had lots of family things going on…you know what it’s like trying to balance work/home life. !
I’ve got one finishing high school, one just finished her first year of college. Two proms. One 8th grade formal. One child going to Orlando for two weeks, another going to Destin for a week. Three awards ceremonies. One child with recent medical issues and blah blah blah and so on….
So, I am trying to get back in to balance and expect to reach a proper rhythm again soon. Or my head will explode! I miss you all and hope to post some great content soon.
A tool that will help you ideate!
April 23, 2008
According to a recent Accenture Survey (April 3, 2008) - “Nearly two-thirds of 601 executives in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada claimed that their organizations business strategy is either totally or largely dependent on innovation.”
Ideation, it’s puts the Ying in your Yang – because it leads to innovation… But how do we go about thinking about thinking? One way it to take advantage of what been done. But first lets talk about Homer.
I love that episode when Homer Simpson runs for the office of the sanitation department. His campaign slogan was “Can’t someone else do it”? Well, if its been done before – whether right or wrong, lets learn from it. Recently I have been making use of a tool that helps me think of terms…a tool that was created by a company that has a high dollar per share value and we all have come to know and love (and love to hate) – Google.
There are times when it’s hard to be exhaustive. I remember the times when my kids were young – at the end of a story they would ask…what else daddy? It’s not unlike situations that we are faced with today. When we are talking to the business or to peers alike, its always the case – what else? Today, I am going to recommend a tool that I sometimes use to help me build out a framework for analysis. Well, that might be an overstatement. It is like using a hammer to build a house – it’s just one tool of many.
The situation: you are meeting with your customer to frame a strategic discussion or to set a structure for analysis. For example, you are meeting with the business leadership to discuss a database consolidation effort – there is no precedent set and your beginning point is a real white board. It’s helpful to begin with an analysis framework – or a conceptual model that represents the enterprise and its nuances.
Often times, its good to look at a matrix – where there is relevance on where the rows and columns meet. On the left side of the matrix, you represent driving factors that feed in to a decision. But what is the list? Where do you start? Now, we need something across the top… Maybe the approach to scaling may make sense.
Yes, we can do most of it from our experience. But it’s always helpful to query some good data. Google has been doing data analysis around terms (and their relationship to terms) for years and are quite good at it. And they have opened up some of their findings. Of course, anything Google is very large. To manage this they exposed a database with a simple front end.
The concept is simple; type in some items in a list (or set as they call it) and click either ‘Large Set’ or ‘Small Set’. The application sends your input to their Google brain – runs some analytics on relationships and relevance of your terms to what others have ‘put together’ at some point during the not so distant past – in other words, Google is learning what terms kind of relate to other terms. What returns will absolutely astonish you, make you happy or leave you sad. Sometimes it returns nuggets of thought that you may have missed. Sometimes it returns things that don’t make sense – but you have to get good at using this tool!
TRY IT HERE: http://labs.google.com/sets
The magic here (or the power to harness) is using the results to think about things in a different way. Make use of the terms to abstract to higher levels or reach exhaustion of set terms. Once you figure out how to make use of Google’s term analysis, it will help you reach exhaustion – ok, that’s a punny stretched a bit…. what I mean to say is that it will help you think of those things on the tip of your tongue or terms hiding deeply within your brains – even presenting new things that you should consider.
Of course, everything is clickable and it initates a Google page – ready for you to continue your exploring!
For example, when I type in; love, peace and joy and click the Small Set. It returns the following:
- peace
- love
- joy
- kindness
- gentleness
- goodness
- faithfulness
- patience
- faith
- hope
- longsuffering
- happiness
- meekness
- jesus
Clicking the ‘Grow Set’ returns:
- peace
- love
- joy
- faith
- hope
- happiness
- kindness
- patience
- gentleness
- goodness
- life
- faithfulness
- god
- family
- humility
- prayer
- compassion
- friendship
- beauty
- jesus
- forgiveness
- truth
- generosity
- spirituality
- christianity
- trust
- justice
- courage
- friends
- charity
- wisdom
- gratitude
- honesty
- strength
- qotd
- bible
- grace
- blessings
- respect
- christian
- healing
- success
- freedom
- religion
- light
- mercy
- loyalty
- heaven
- longsuffering
Going the other way (technology), when I type in (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM) the small set returns:
- oracle
- microsoft
- ibm
- sap
- sun
- cisco
- hp
- novell
- intel
- bea
- sybase
- adobe
- citrix
Growing this returns:
- oracle
- microsoft
- ibm
- hp
- cisco
- intel
- sun
- novell
- 3com
- dell
- sap
- apple
- accenture
- symantec
- cognos
- adobe
- compaq
- sony
- toshiba
- amd
- acer
- fujitsu
- manugistics
- citrix
- agile
- lexmark
- marque
- sybase
- linksys
- webmethods
- epson
- apc
- bea
- deloitte
- netgear
- seagate
- ariba
- tibco
- linux
- ugs
- ptc
- canon
Going fruity and typing in; apple, banana, cantaloupe returns:
- apple
- banana
- cantaloupe
- pineapple
- apricot
- watermelon
- grapefruit
- orange
- grapes
- lemon
- cherry
- avocado
- lime
- mango
- blueberry
Growing the set returns:
- cantaloupe
- banana
- apple
- orange
- cherry
- lemon
- strawberry
- mango
- pineapple
- apricot
- pear
- grape
- watermelon
- blueberry
- papaya
- coconut
- kiwi
- chocolate
- lime
- blackberry
- grapefruit
- peach
- assorted
- pomegranate
- raspberry
- lychee
- tamarind
- vanilla
- cinnamon
- grapes
- sweet
- mint
- avocado
- plum
- blended
- cranberry
- tomato
- citrus
Want to know grocery stores – type in Kroger, Tesco, Bigg’s and Google Sets will return:
- tesco
- kroger
- wal mart
- safeway
- albertsons
- carrefour
- publix
- winn dixie
- sainsbury
- target
- asda
- walgreens
- meijer
- costco
- rite aid
- cvs
- food lion
- waitrose
- auchan
- kmart
- somerfield
- fred meyer
- harris teeter
- k mart
- home depot
- morrisons
- heb
- sainsbury’s
- hypernova
- ahold
- albertson’s
- sam’s club
- makro
- piggly wiggly
- ingles
- co op
- office depot
- globus
- kaufland
- metro
- giant
- eckerd
- sears
- walmart
- supervalu
- giant eagle
- king soopers
One word of caution – it is in Google’s Labs – their playground. Its fun to play there, but you may get sand in your pants!
Have Fun!
~ Scott Felten
Decisions Vs. Assumptions
April 17, 2008
Today I will be rather blunt. There is a misconception about decision-making that has plagued many companies and has contributed directly to the high failure rate (or perceived failure rate) of projects. This single point leaves us with an orientation that either directs us to success or leads us on a path to failure. Regarding project vision, goals, objectives, benefits, scope, requirements, usage, feature set and functionality, look and feel, navigation, data, relationships, CRUD, security, quality, strategy and anything else that is not plumbing…
“When IT makes decisions, they are really assumptions!”
Once we understand this point, we can really get down to setting direction and building relationships that help us (IT) drive value back through the business. Let’s look at this in more detail.
When IT makes decisions (about the project dimensions I mentioned above), it sets off a chain reaction and these are the results.
- IT owns the project. This leads to the business becoming disconnected from the process. The value that the project could have brought to the company is not realized because that disconnection exists. At the end of the day, IT ends up holding the bag because when it comes to implementation, there is no ‘real’ sponsor. Oh, there may be someone who has that role, but their real power has been usurped; and not because IT used their power for evil. IT really wants to use their powers for good, we just try to save time. And that is the slippery slope!
- IT ‘continues’ when they should ask. Maybe IT thinks they know the answer. It could be that the business doesn’t know and in trying to keep the project on time, IT steps up and answers. Or simply IT wants to move things along and skips this process all together and makes decisions. Either way, IT faces extreme pressures to keep timelines and costs under control. And its hard to see the long term impact of simply making decisions and “keeping things on track”.
- IT ‘continues’ when they should validate or verify. Once a decision is made, it is tempting to keep that momentum. That decision was made and no one got hurt – nothing destructive happened…so why not keep going, after all it will keep us on track and that’s what the bosses like to hear. Well, when IT makes decisions they must be validated or verified by their customer. Have you ever went in to buy shoes and they simply put a pair in the box after you explained what you were looking for? Most likely not – we need to look at it, touch it, try it on, feel how it performs, compare to other shoes and see how they bring value to you as a person.
- IT makes a lot of progress and most of it potentially in the wrong direction. Often times in my career I have managed what I think of as a thoroughbred. This is someone who explodes at the beginning of the project, excels throughout the middle game and ends with a sprint. They high performers are worth their weight in gold. But there is a cost. That cost comes in the form of … “Yes, you are going 120 MPH but you are headed in the wrong direction!” I have spoken those words more than once, that’s for sure. IT must ensure that we are delivering the right things, not just right away. IT must strive for strategic value over making everyone happy. IT must validate the ASSUMPTIONS (formerly known as decisions) at well disciplined and scheduled times.
- Project scope creeps. Trying to become all things to all people, IT has lead the application to a place where it actually meets no ones needs. It’s so broad that it’s too shallow to use. It’s like having a map of Ohio in actual size!
- Costs get out of control. Its like a nuclear bomb, you know its there and no one speaks about it for a long time. The costs keep growing and then one day…all life ceases.
- The project is late. But then it becomes very late, then its renamed but then its late again and so on. When IT can bring those decisions back to the customer the IT is holding a laser and can really make an impact. Alignment and focus on value leads to success.
- The business looses trust in IT. This is where everyone looses. The company does not receive the value that they need to compete. They loose competitive edge and have to rely on their existing momentum to take them places. The business receives pressure to perform. They are hesitant to team up with IT and put their futures in the hands of a group that doesn’t deliver. The business must make progress so they take on some projects; this leads to animosity between the groups and contributes to a further disconnection. Eventually, the business ends up with a shadow IT group. This leads to a degradation of standards which impacts quality throughout the organization. And so on…
I am just scratching the surface here. But the point is that IT makes assumptions and until they are validated by the customer (or the business) then they must remain just that… Assumptions. Its ok to make assumptions, but you can’t just leave them all over the place. Once they are made, there must be a process to convert them to decisions! This is done on many levels; from a simple phone call (and the supporting documentation appropriate to the need) to a full enterprise level governance effort where members from every line of business/functional group are represented (with a sponsor, formal charters, and a framework for interfacing with the other groups within the company).
Lastly, here is what I am not saying. I am not saying that the customer (or the business) lead the development project. What do they know about building applications? Chances are they can not manage a project. I am sure they don’t have much visibility in to the infrastructure (data, information, application, network/hardware…) and the strategies going forward. I am not even saying that IT makes the wrong decisions – often times they are technically right, after all, we are the technical folks, right? But how does that align strategy with value? How do we ensure that our customers are successful? … By becoming a partner (but this is another blog)! When we reach this level, communication is a two-way street. We are responsible at the fiduciary level for making assumptions and then converting them to real decisions!
Make the decision today to convert your group’s assumptions to real decisions! This is a principle that must be built within each team’s DNA. The easiest way to get there from here is to lead by example.
~ Scott Felten