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Posts Tagged ‘Practice Leadership’

The Need for a Business-Focused BI Strategy

I have had the opportunity to provide advisory services for a number of clients in the past few years.  I am surprised at the large number of these clients that do not have a BI Strategy and do not feel that a BI Strategy provides value.  In talking with our clients I have noticed a […]

Estimating Hints for Cognos TM1 Report Development

Typically, a TM1 project will include work to create reports. Most finance groups will have a number of Excel workbooks that they are using for both their forecasting and planning as well as for reporting. These workbooks will become the “templates” for designing your TM1 input sheets and reports. For the reports, you will be […]

Automation of Cognos TM1 Data Loading

In one of my earlier posts I recommended an approach for loading larger amounts of data into TM1 applications, and provided a high-level explanation of this approach, which I call the “File Route” solution. Some More Thoughts                  I like this load-strategy because, in following best practice guidelines, it leverages TM1’s proven ETL tool, TurboIntegrator to […]

My Center of Excellence

Every Center of Excellence team must develop the ability to measure and report on the performance of all areas and efforts of the CoE as well as related specific efforts of the organization or practice it supports. Measuring performance allows the CoE to set expectations for current and new work- providing answers to certain key […]

Fundamental Questions to Ask When Performing Solution Assessments

Center of Excellence Any self-respecting Center of Excellence will practice solution assurance by conducting timely solution reviews and assessments as part of their teams design, development and deployment processes.  These assessments will of course require formal “deep dives” into the solutions program code, but at a high level, the following are 5 fundamental questions to […]

Introducing the Concept of Practice IP

On the agenda of every Practice Center of Excellence must be:  “Implement and formalize IP identification and development”. The first step in establishing a program of this type is to clearly understand the concept of “practice intellectual property” – keeping in mind that the “traditional” concept of IP is mostly outdated. Practice leadership must understand […]

Characteristics of a Subject Matter Expert

I’ve found that an integral part of any practice will be subject matter experts (or “SME’s”) that can provide assistance and direction to engineers who are in the field.  SMEs will often be asked to review, improve, and approve technical work; to guide others; and to teach. Where does an SME come from? SME’s will […]

Expectations for a Center of Excellence

If your organization has implemented a center of excellence initiative, that’s great! But what should you expect from it?   Here are 5 basic CoE objectives: Sharing Your Center of Excellence should continually strive to identify “practical assets” revealed during project work that could simplify or improve the efforts of the practice it supports. These […]