Is it just me or does stephen few look like a lame magician?

Exam is in 3 weeks and 2 days

Exam is in 3 weeks and 2 days... time to freak out .. argggggggh!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like the email entry works

Looks like the email entry works... too bad from my hotmail account it throws in the footer at the end. Apparently i'm pimping singles in my area...nice!

Today has been spent going through past exams. I love the exam format, choose 4 our of 11 possible questions. It means i can focus on areas i am passionate about , rather than flunking out because i blanked out a subject area.  Found myself alittle angry today whilst reading a quote from bill gates 'the speed of thought'. Apparently 'most organisations do not have enough data to understand key aspects of their business well enough'. The way i read that statement is that billy boy is really selling copies of sql server than anything else? You need to store more data, buy SQL server and a whole heap more servers. Business don't need more data, they are knee deep in it. What they need is more focused information. No software is going to help that. Maybe Ackoff, Kaplan and Norton should have a chat with him. 

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Stupid Error messages

Whislt I won't name names because anyone can read this forum . I have come to dread the stupid error messages that are reported by BI reporting suite X. I won't write the actual error messages, because its too easy to right click and google it (or to BING it if you have been drinking). The error message, 'You do not have the right to conduct this query' sent me on a 2 hour quest to figure out what i broke and how to mend it. Turns out there is a default setting which you need to un check to allow you to perform pretty simple and routine operation. Does this restrictive default setting help anyone. Short answer, No . It doesn't increase security, encourage more elegant solutions, or avoid catraspohe. God only knows why its there in the first place. When i asked a consultant who worked for this particular software vendor, his response was vague and didn't actually respond to the question. Maybe its there to help consultants ?

R.L. Ackoff

At the tail end of the assignment and putting everything together and tied it hopefully with some sound theory. Its interesting, that at work , if i put a reference to a research paper i probably would have been asked to remove it . Maybe that is the culture at my current work place or a reflection of the sector i work in ? As i start digesting the readings, i found one of the most intersting articles by Ackoff. This article was written in the 1960's and reflects the issues still faced by the industry . Im not sure if this demonstrates how little the industry has progressed or how insightful ackoff was. Might spend today reading up on the guy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_L._Ackoff

The Balance of processing

Should something be processes on the fly or precompiled when the star schema is loaded with data (the ETL process)? Its all a matter of timing ,stability and data storage . Obviously if you precompile something, it has to be stored somewhere and this can be restricted by how much storage capacity is available. Conversely if everything is calculated on the fly, this can dramatically deteriate the performance of a report. For this assignment there are too many unknowns. How fast are their servers ? How much data storage is available ? Anticipated volumes of data ? Who knows !

These decisions are something that I would make implicitly but I guess this project has really galvanized my train of though on the matter. Some are applicable to the assign, while

Rules of Thumb.

• If something will only need to be processed once and it will not change , its best done during the ETL load. A good example is age category. Assuming there is a standardised category 18-24, 25-34, etc.why process this again and again on the fly?
• If something is likely to be altered, changed, or there are dozens of ways to calculated it. Do it on the fly. Eg Percentage of late Sales. If this is done at the ETL level, this would need to be recalculated for every region or state.
• If a report is standardized and isn't likely to change, create an aggregate table (select net_proceeds from sales_fact group by region). By creating aggregating a table, the load of processing data on the presentation layer can be significantly reduced. This only is applicable if data storage is not an issue and the volume of data being calculated is large.

God bless the techos.

Wow I have forgotten how finicky programming can be. Okay maybe hacking up some SQL and MDX isn't a true programming adventure but its enough for a a humble BA who rarely touches anything remotely technical with a ten foot clown pole. I have rediscovered the need for establishing standardized naming conventions, generic structures and clear designs like all that usefully stuff . I think I forgot about those with all that useless stuff I learnt at uni I guess that is the problem with prototypes. Everything is build in an adhoc fashion. Can we twist this graph this way ? Can we slice this report by this instead of that ? Can we merge these two reports into one ? This organic approach to developing BI systems can breed ideal solutions but not elegant technical ones. With the assignment potentially being marked for the technical elegance. I guess I'll go back at some point and re-invent my wheel.

Its gotta be red just not fluoro green.

I have ripped off some red rooster graphics to design my reports(A glimpse into my dietary habits unfortunately). I'm sure if I designed the report layout on a Sunday morning the report would have been inspired by a Berroca and/or the VB logo. Anyway. I honestly think that these graphics add a touch of class to the reports. Really ! I guess I'll leave that up to the tutors. I found that one of most under appreciated skills is designing an effective BI interface. There is an art in designing these report, which I have definitely not mastered . Maintaining functionality, clarity whilst presenting the data in such a manner that instils elegance and professionalism whilst avoiding becoming bland or worst yet, the stylishly ugly. I have found the website www.juiceanalytics.com a really great resource for report design, loaded with lost of tips and tricks. However I think they need to work on their sales pitch. For a fee they will review your reports and provide you with a elegant designs. Judging from the fluoro green monstrosity (below) they boast as a glowing sample of their work , it looks pretty but im not sure my eyes wouldn't appreciate the love.

Stakeholders where art thou ?

This weeks blog is short by crucial , starting the assignment but my understanding of the requirements is abit fuzzy. The stakeholder's MO, there business operations, the supporting meta data, and the actual requirements are .. well … best described as little vague. Does this really impact the assignment? No, Not really. What I have found however is that I will have a list of disclaimers (assumptions and interpretations) in the report. Ideally I would have clarified all of these with business, however this isn't necessarily something I can obtain in this scenario. Additionally a series of mock-up (designed in paint or excel) with no dummy data would have been presented to the users to gauge what they want.

Guessing what business wants and developing a fully functional prototype is a recipe for failure. The problem with this approach is that:

• The BA invests time in a product that the end user may not want.
• The stakeholder can loose confidence in the BA as they can perceived the guess as left of centre.
• The stakeholders can become focused on the figures produced rather than designing a solution that can support the decisions making processes.

warning.... backlog of blogs approaching

work blocked facebook/blogger/ebay and anything remotely fun .... so while i have been writing a diary at work .... i haven't been able to post anything because i don't have net access at home either so welcome to the flood of posts