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Archive for category Business & IT Issues

Top 7 Reasons I Wear a Suit

Aug 29

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

I dislike wearing suits.

It used to be that I could code in my favorite Phish t-shirt wearing sandals. I had a key instead of a badge, and lunch usually meant a few greasy pizzas or clam cakes. In those days, my attire only meant something if there was an off-site or if clients were coming to visit “the shop” (which was a tiny building several miles from the heart of the big city). I could easily bounce back and forth between long and short hair and between full beard and cleaned-shaved. Ahh… those were the days.

Now I work in a major international city for a rather large bank. I code in a suit when I’m not in meetings, wear nice shoes, carry a badge, and eat salads and yogurt for lunch. *sigh*

To be fair, I enjoy the new challenges and the big city. And if wearing a suit on occasion is a consequence, I can live with it. So while a suit is not fully mandatory, I still wear one at times. Here’s why:

  1. It easily puts me in line with the dress code
  2. Dressing is simpler in the morning (although sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the perfect knot in my tie)
  3. My wife tells me I look great
  4. Dressing down on Friday never felt so good
  5. I look more important than I am
  6. I feel more important than I am
  7. My jacket flaps behind me in the wind when I ride my bike to the train station, which makes me feel like a super hero with a cape

Other than those fantastic reasons, wearing a suit is a real drag.

Some man on a bike wearing a suit in Europe (I do admit, there is something rather Monty Pythonish about wearing a suit on a bike. I bet I look pretty silly to the folks driving past me. But riding my bike gives me more than 30 minutes a day of much-needed exercise, and on top of that, the price of gas here in Europe would blow your mind!)

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Business Casual

Jul 25

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

So today I am wearing jeans and a faded (but once pleasant) button-down shirt. No tie, although my shoes are nice and I am wearing dark socks. A few others around me are similarly dressed, which is typical for summer Fridays. Then there are those who are in full suits, as if preparing for a job interview or some important sales meeting. Others are in suits but without tie which is in-and-of-itself a very strange practice; I call these “half-suits”.

You can draw two lines in the sand separating all three groups of Friday dressers. You have the “workers” – those actively engaged in business operations like myself; the middle management-type who are no longer “workers” and who aspire to delegate more and more activities, you know the type – it’s just like them not to wear ties with their suits; lastly, there are those who on the one end of the spectrum make only infrequent strategic decisions of the C-level type and on the other end those who work for mostly commission and must rely on their superior charisma (and sharp suits) to get ahead.

My colleague and I are working feverishly at the moment to improve the performance of one of our BI applications: A process we hope to improve from roughly 15 minutes to about 7 minutes (so half-suit and full-suit can have more time at the cooler). In addition, I am troubleshooting a foreign key violation in one of our ETL loads, and my partner-in-crime is hunting down the results of some replication testing in our production environment. Meanwhile, a full suit is currently browsing an online golf store; the half-suits are centered around the water cooler.

This, symbolically, highlights the problems with business and IT alignment in general — especially in large organizations. I find that IT is normally of the first variety – willing to dress down whenever possible to add a little comfort to an otherwise fast-paced existence full of responsibility and accountability. Dressing down in no-way implies a dress down of activities or a dumbing down of skills.

As you can tell, this is a bit of a rant and a fallacious attempt at tossing my colleagues into generalized buckets. But one thing is very true: business and IT need to get in sync. I would like to think that my team is above average in this regard. The immediate team consists of business and IT personnel - all of which are fighting for a successful project.

‘d like to hear your thoughts on this matter….

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Business Processes and the Integrated Enterprise

Jun 5

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

It’s time to think about business processes.

In a recent post, I defined a business process as “the complete response that a business makes to an event”. Because this is such an important topic for data warehousing, I thought I’d share some additional thoughts.

IntegrationBusiness processes include such activities as accounts receivable, orders, sales, and inventory management. Each process has a specific event (or goal) that defines the process and in many cases allows us to gauge the health of that process. For example, an order is an event within the orders business process. Inventory movement is an event within the inventory management process. And so on.

For a few years now, there has been a significant push — mainly by service oriented (SOA) and data warehousing architects — to get businesses to think more about business processes and not about departments, applications, and technologies. Traditionally, most organizations have structured IT around specific software purchases and departmental needs. Integrating these disparate systems later becomes a significant challenge for business intelligence, performance management, and master data initiatives.

James Gibson, in his research piece “A Research Strategy for Investigating Business Process Management Approaches”, wrote that it’s time to start thinking about process and process processing rather than data and data processing (I had to read that more than once too!). The key is that the business process — which is tied to a specific event — is a driver that can lead all other initiatives along. Actionable insights (typically what you hope to derive from your Business Intelligence and Performance Management initiatives) are only useful if they’re tied to a process that can be improved.

Thinking more about business processes, and developing architectures to support them, leads to a more integrated enterprise

Data Warehousing with dimensional modeling is solely focused on the business process. In fact, you cannot develop a true dimensional model without modeling it around some business event. And it should be clear that a single business event can span multiple source systems and departments. The dimensional model pulls all this together.

On the transactional and operational side of the fence, SOA is the right approach to take. Essentially, SOA provides a standard way to access myriad resources across a network through RPC, Web Services, and APIs (among other techniques). One application can communicate with another in real-time.

Developing an SOA and a Data Warehouse one-process-at-a-time is smart. I will talk more about this in a future posting, but the idea is simple: start with a single business process that will make the most impact and is most feasible. Then, in an iterative way, expand into additional processes. This allows development to quickly turn over key functionality while leaving room to resolve business process volatility issues and political ramblings. If you are lucky enough to be starting both data warehousing and SOA programs simultaneously, it makes most sense for the same business process to be the subject for both!

Master Data Management is about data governance and forms a core part of the integrated enterprise. Through SOA, applications can access master copies of shared entities, such as Customer and Product. Master data might be derived partly from a data warehouse using ETL and partly by operational applications in a transactional environment through SOA. When it is time to embark on an MDM initiative, it makes a lot of sense to start thinking about business processes, conformed dimensions, and how to maintain this critical data.

So imagine for a moment an enterprise with dozens of departments all using different tools and software solutions to manage their day-to-day operations. Through SOA, these applications can all talk to each other so that when a customer checks on an order, the clerk can also see who took the order, where the product currently is in transit, the customer’s order history and much more. The data is not integrated, but the processes are. At the end of the day, when the regional salespeople need their numbers, the data warehouse — which has integrated data arranged around various business events — provides the results quickly giving all subscribers a complete and integrated view of all relevant business processes.

Adopt architectures that facilitate business’ natural orientation towards the business process. Business Intelligence, Performance Management, Business Process Reengineering, and Master Data Management initiatives will benefit tremendously. I’ve been saddled by the department-oriented mentality by business for too long. Better IT/Business alignment in this area will create more opportunities for defining clear business processes which in turn will lead to a better integrated organization.

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Formula 409: Private Companies Must Comply with SOX

Apr 4

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

I’ve been doing a lot of research on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance lately in part because I am now working in the financial industry and in part because I am preparing an article on the topic for Advisor Media.

SOX compliance is both complex and vague. There is no official compliance checklist, only various guidelines and advice from agencies, accountants, and vendors. Businesses are left to implement control frameworks, introduce new segregation of powers, add auditing and logging to existing systems, and rely on the advice and expertise of consultants and vendors who promise to deliver various solutions.

And if there is a misstep, the CEO could go to jail.

Section 409

One area I don’t hear a lot of discussion about from the IT world is the implications of Section 409. Not to say that there is no discussion, but that the vast majority of IT articles on SOX compliance focus on Sections 302 and 404. The reality is that Section 409 doesn’t easily translate to any specific IT implementation or control structure.

But it certainly has significant implications for a public company’s IT/R&D department. Here is the text of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Section 409:

Section 13 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78m), as amended by this Act, is amended by adding at the end the following:

“(l) REAL TIME ISSUER DISCLOSURES. - Each issuer reporting under section 13(a) or 15(d) shall disclose to the public on a rapid and current basis such additional information concerning material changes in the financial condition or operations of the issuer, in plain English, which may include trend and qualitative information and graphic presentations, as the Commission determines, by rule, is necessary or useful for the protection of investors and in the public interest.”.

Basically, a public company must disclose material change events that would impact their financial condition or operations. And Big Brother wants pictures!

As an investor, this is great news; for the sake of innovation though, not so much.

Material changes

What is a material change? No clue. Well, I do have some clue, but there is no official definition of a material change in relation to Section 409 compliance. The only requirement seems to be that it is any change that impacts a company’s finances or operations. I suppose outsourcing a project to IBM, laying off a few dozen employees, or significantly cutting supplier costs all apply. Any change in an organization that could change profitability is a candidate. This includes a failed research and development project.

Yes, a failed R&D project.

Innovation takes a hit

The prospect of reporting failure likely makes CEOs a bit weak in the knees. Competitors will sniff the SOX box to find out what their rivals are doing — or not doing, for that matter. This in turn will force public companies to think twice about taking R&D risks. If you like innovation and continuous improvement, this doesn’t bode well.

As a result (directly or indirectly), we’ve seen a flurry of big-time acquisitions. Instead of developing new technologies in-house, companies are more inclined than ever to acquire them from smaller companies. To restate: the prospect of a failed innovative R&D project is forcing large companies to purchase private companies with proven ideas and technologies.

One of many examples

Take Microsoft’s acquisition of Stratature, an MDM vendor, last year. Stratature was recognized as the fastest growing private company in the Southeast in both 2005 and 2006. Microsoft bought them in 2007. Certainly Microsoft could have developed their own MDM solution. Right?

It is my feeling that the purchase had to do in part with Section 409. Microsoft could have started R&D on their own MDM solution. But MDM is complex and evolving. There is no one clear solution. If Microsoft embarked on this path, there would have been a chance they would have failed. Stratature was already a big success. The price was high, but worth it.

Opportunities for the rest of us

It is clear that Section 409 presents an interesting opportunity to small, private companies. If you invent an idea and grow and market it, it is more likely today than ever before that a larger company would seek to acquire you. Larger companies don’t want to take the risk of exposing themselves (and their failed project initiatives) under the “material event” clause of SOX. Besides, larger companies buy up smaller companies anyway: it is good business and often fits their strategic interests. Section 409 merely gives them an additional reason to do so.

Therefore, SOX compliance for all

Now you have a great product, and you have some interest from a larger public company looking to acquire you. But you have no internal control structures in place, no financial audit trail, and your IT department has broad access to all of your data. Because of this, the purchasing company will need to do a lot of work getting your business in shape for public life.

Not only that, but partnering with a public company may force you into compliance as well.

Lastly, your valuation will be higher if you comply with SOX (check out the Aberdeen Group’s “SOX Compliance and Automation: A Benchmark Report”, which can be downloaded from the Compliance Library at ultimate Software). Private companies who comply with SOX — especially sections 302 and 404 — operate better, are trusted, and are more attractive to potential buyers.

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Unless you have no plans of being acquired or partnering with a public company, then it seems foolish not to start the process of meeting the requirements of SOX: Especially if you are an innovative company doing one or more progressive research projects.

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The Future of Open Source in BI

Mar 12

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

At last Thursday’s TDWI Benelux Chapter meeting, Davy Nys of Pentaho gave an overview of how open source could/might/will change the face of Business Intelligence. He gave a reasonably good vendor-neutral presentation (important for TDWI events). His session was a nice compliment to the “BI Trends” presentation given by Steve Hoberman an hour earlier.

Perhaps there is a trend for organizations to turn to more open-source software solutions for BI projects. After all, Davy’s company and others like Talend and CloverETL are making great strides in competing for market share.

As the big players in BI continue to merge and consolidate, it is pretty exciting to see several open source vendors and tools emerge. Is this a reflection of the community’s general dissatisfaction regarding commercial software? Are the open source solutions better? Is this truly a trend to be reckoned with? Should MS and others be worried?

Open Source Considerations

Davy stressed the importance of reducing the TCO of BI software. Without licensing fees, open-source can do just that. As Rick Sherman predicts in an article for DM Review, TCO will become a much more significant factor in the adoption of any and all BI trends. Licensing costs could impact TCO in such a dramatic way that a company can save a significant amount on their investment by switching to open source.

TCO isn’t the only consideration. Before evaluating open-source software, Davy suggests to examine the vibrancy of the community. A vibrant community with contributors and enthusiasts is a good sign for future product development and support.

Licensing is yet another very important consideration. As part of his presentation, Davy initiated a discussion on viral verses non-viral licensing. here’s is how I understand it: In a “viral” agreement, any source code changes to the product must be returned back to the public. Non-viral agreements allow companies to modify the source as they see fit without having to report back to the community. With viral licensing, I would have tremendous concerns about intellectual property and protecting business practices and methods.

What I found strange about the Q&A session and roundtable discussion that followed his presentation was the focus on the Pentaho business model. The concern of some BI professionals is thus: How can the economics associated with running an open source software company be sustainable over a long period of time? The question is relevant because as BI Professionals, we need to supply solutions that will be supportable, scalable, and usable in the future. The concern is that a company — like Pentaho — might not live and thrive long enough to meet the long-term needs of the business. I am not qualified to answer this question, but I admit, I wonder myself. Davy did an excellent job of presenting the case, however. If you need details on how Pentaho and other open source organizations make their money, it would be best to contact them directly. These are valid concerns and should be part of tool analysis that should go on early in a project’s planning.

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I am open to the possibilities that open source can provide for BI applications. I use open source software all the time (from Wordpress to MySQl to Codeplex), but for a mission critical business initiative? Before making a decision like that, I would certainly need to have more information and a project to try it out on.

To learn more about Davy, you can check out his LinkedIn profile or visit the Pentaho website.

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Defining Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing

Sep 20

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

I’ve been asked on occasion to define Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. Typically, I am not sure how to answer. I’m terrible at inventing definitions, but here is what I usually respond with: For Business Intelligence, it is “a broad term describing the acquired knowledge obtained through reporting and analysis of organizational information” and for Data Warehousing, “A subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile process of collecting data for supporting decisions” (close to Inmon’s definition). But those answers don’t really satisfy me or those who have asked the question.

There are dozens of ‘accepted’ definitions for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. To make matters more confusing, the community itself seems torn. For example, the wikipedia article on the subject is woeful at best. I’ve seen others define BI as a ‘front-end’ to Data Warehousing, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. There is also a strong misconception that Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing are one-in-the same or connected at the hip. They are not.

I believe some of the onus can be placed on vendors who sell “BI” or “BIDW” solutions.

First, Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence is not an activity or process. It’s a result. You either have it or you don’t. This is a very important distinction, considering the level of misconception surrounding it.

How can you get it? Well, lots of ways.

Having intelligence about the business allows you to make informed decisions. The intelligence is derived from many sources. One of which is through Data Warehousing. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), knowledge management, and technical reporting are others, for example.

Second, Data Warehousing

Data Warehousing is a process. It is not just a database, nor is its purpose in life to just hold historical data (a common misconception). The process involves Data Profiling, Metadata Management, Dimensional Modeling, Data Integration (ex: ETL, EAI), Data Quality, Reporting, and Governance. There are many variations to this process, all of which are driven by business needs.

The Data Warehouse facilitates Business Intelligence by providing the necessary data and processes needed to integrate disparate transactional data into valuable information presented through various Applications such as executive dashboards, ad-hoc reporting tools, analytics, etc. These Applications are used by decisions-makers to make informed decisions.

It follows that Business Intelligence can be an outcome of Data Warehousing, provided that the data in the warehouse is promoted to information and then applied to decision-making.

Purpose and Justification

Strategic initiatives, goals, and competition will drive how organizations approach obtaining Business Intelligence. One organization might look at it for tactical reasons (i.e. decision support). Another might see it as a mission-critical part of running their day-to-day operations. Yet another might see it as a competitive differentiator. These drivers define the tools, techniques, and processes that might be used. Data Warehousing may solve one or more of these requirements.

Additionally, the drivers dictate the type of Applications that will be created on top of the Data Warehouse Database. Some departments may insist on printable reports or Excel sheets. Some Applications might be designed to analyze trends, issues, and events to gain insight into a process. It is very common to see outcome analysis, scoring, data exports, and some automated processes (such as bulk email operations).

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The point of this entry is not to “set the record straight”, but rather to help draw the line between Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. It is an expression of my opinion on the subject. Please understand that this is an important discussion to be having if you are involved or are planning to be involved in a Data Warehousing project.

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Take the Survey!

May 16

Posted by Tod McKenna in Business & IT Issues

I took it Take a moment to fill out this quick survey (takes about 5 minutes) published by A List Apart. The purpose of this survey is to create some metrics that can be used to gauge the vitality of Web Development as a whole. From A List Apart’s website:

Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

Take the Survey here: http://alistapart.com/articles/webdesignsurvey

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