Everyone is guilty of falling into a rut and building reports the same way over and over again. This year, don’t just churn out the same old reports, resolve to deliver better business intelligence. Think about what business intelligence means. Resolve, at least in your world, to make business intelligence about helping organizations improve business outcomes by making informed decisions. When the next report requests land on your desk leave the tool of choice alone, Cognos in my case, and think for a while. This even applies to those of you building your own reports in a self-service BI world.
Think about the business value. How will the user make better business decisions? Is the user trying to understand how to allocate capital? Is the user trying to improve patient care? Is the user trying to stem the loss of customers to a competitor? Is the user trying find the right price point for their product? No matter what the ultimate object, this gets you thinking like the business person and makes you realize the goal is not a report.
Think about the obstacles to getting the information. Is the existing report or system to slow? Is the data dirty or incorrect? Is the data to slow to arrive or to old to use? Is the existing system to arcane to use? You know the type – when the moon is full, stand on your left leg, squint, hit O-H-Ctrl-R-Alt-P then the report comes out perfectly – if it doesn’t time out. Think about it, if there were no obstacles there would be no report request in your hands
Think about the usage. Who is going to use the analysis? Where will they be using it? How will they get access to the reports? Can everyone see all the data or is some of it restricted? Are users allowed to share the data with others? How will the users interact with the data and information? When do the users need the information in their hands? How current does the data need to be? How often does the data need to be refreshed? How does the data have to interact with other systems? Thinking through the usage gives you a perspective beyond the parochial limits of your BI tool.
Think like Edward Tufte. What should the structure of the report look like? How would it look in black and white? What form should the presentation take? How should the objects be laid out? What visualizations should be used? And, those are never pie-charts. What components can be taken away without reducing the amount of information presented? What components can be added, in the same real-estate, without littering, to improve the information provided? How can you minimize the clutter and maximize the information. Think about the flaws of write once and deliver anywhere, and the garish palates many BI tools provide.
Think about performance. Is the user thinking instantaneous response? Is the user thinking get a cup of tea and come back response time? Is the user okay kicking off a job and getting the results the next morning? If you find one of these, cherish them! They are hard to find these days. Will the user immediately select the next action or do they require some think time. Is the data set a couple of structured transactional records or is the data set a chunk of a big-data lake? Does the data set live in one homogenous source or across many heterogeneous sources? Thinking about performance early means you won’t fall into a trap of missed expectations or an impossible implementation.
Think about data quality. It is a fact of life. How do you deal with and present missing data? How do you deal with incorrect values? How do you deal with out of bounds data? What is the cost of a decision made on bad data? What are the consequences of a decision made on incorrect data? What is the cost of perfect data? What is the value of better data. Thinking about quality before you start coding lets you find a balance between cost and value.
Think about maintenance. Who is going to be responsible for modifications and changes? You know they are going to be needed. As good as you are, you won’t get everything right. Is better to quickly replicate a report multiple times and change the filters, or is it better to spend some extra time and use parameters and conditional code to have a single report server many purposes? Is it better to use platform specific outputs or is it better to use a “hybrid” solution and support every output format from a single build? Are the reports expected to be viable in 10-years or will they be redone in 10-weeks? Thinking through the maintenance needs will let you invest your time in the right areas
Think you are ready to build? Think again. Think through your tool sets capabilities and match them to you needs. Think through your users skills and match them to the tools. Think about your support team and let them know what you need. Think through your design and make sure it is viable.
Here’s to thinking better Business Intelligence throughout the year.
“Thinking through the usage gives you a perspective beyond the parochial limits of your BI tool.”
When you think about who is using your BI tool it helps you focus your efforts. What kind of reports do you need to set up to run automatically? What kind of training do you need to offer? When you think about the end user you can set up your BI tool to be developed in the right way.
Pat, I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. You have to constantly be thinking about the end users