Dilbert on Why Self-Service Reporting, BI & Analytics Takes Faith

The term 'self-service' has been applied to reporting, business intelligence and analytics over the past few years.  While there are many business use cases for agile, 'self-service' approaches; it is a BI myth to believe that the need for a single consolidated source of truth is going away.  

So, why do I say that self-service BI takes 'faith'?  

Whether you trust sales person 1 who prepared a report in Excel or their favourite BI tool based on the centralized data warehouse that has ingested the raw sales data, applied consistent rules to modify the data and provide it in an easy to use and understand model or sales person 2 armed with an exported sales report, Excel to modify the data and a data discovery tool to report accurately on last month's sales, you need to trust the initial data quality, interim transformation process and final aggregation and visualization. 

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-08-10 

Neither process is wrong, but there are obvious benefits to each approach and organizations should take a bi-modal approach to leverage the strengths of each.

My experience working with clients supports this.  There are several types of people who work at organizations, but at a bare minimum, there are data analysts (those trained and experienced working with data) and data consumers (those who either lack this training and experience or simply don't have the time).  We are not moving forward if we expect those in the second category to supernaturally 'help themselves'.  

Dilbert Sensors IoT Big Data Employee Hat

We've been hearing a lot about Big Data for years and big data sources getting increasing attention these days are smart machines and sensors. 


Sensors, like the one in Dilbert's stylish hat, can be embedded in wearable technology, enhancing what traditionally has been low tech clothing with numerous data points to be harnessed to create new and better products and solutions, ultimately better serving customers and improving profits.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-02-08

Now, back to work!
 

Dilbert Spreadsheet Error Ethics

I feel compelled to post this latest Dilbert strip on spreadsheet errors, as a follow up to yesterday's post.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-07

I suppose this same type of question could apply to machine learning and other advanced analytics that could also be easily misapplied.

Do you have spreadsheets with critical errors that you're overlooking because they give you the answers you want?

Or, perhaps you have error free spreadsheets that are manually updated periodically (every day, week, month, etc.) that are an inefficient use of time?

Either way, there are both Excel-based and non-Excel based solutions to help!

Dilbert Spreadsheet Errors

There have got to be more posts on the problems with Excel and spreadsheet errors than pictures of cats on FaceBook at this point.
But, now that Dilbert has chimed in, we all know the issues are real!

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-06

Dilbert on Big Data

Big Data is definately here to stay, but as Dilbert points out below the ethics of Big Data analysis also need to be considered.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-01-27/

Dilbert on Preparing the Annual Budget

I love Dilbert and I especially love Dilbert on anything related to budgeting, reporting, analytics or business intelligence.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2013-10-21/

In many organizations, a certain aura of 'mystery' surrounds how the annual budget is prepared in Excel. In some cases, those preparing it cannot even articulate it very well.  This 'mystery' is another risk for those organizations that do not invest in a CPM platform and 'de-mystefying' the planning process.

Dilbert on Performance Goals and KPIs

A lot of fun is poked at 'bad' customer service and we all know how important it is to have trained, fully engaged client facing human resources in our organizations. 

When it comes to tech support, I think we've all experienced something close to what Dilbert does below.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2012-02-12   

What I like most about this Dilbert strip is that it highlights the need to have well-designed performance goals and KPIs.  While resolving technical support cases is certainly an important goal for any technical support representative, a performance goal like this in isolation is at risk of being 'gamed' with the resultant negative overall impact on the organization.  It would be better to link this goal to customer satisfaction and rephrase the goal as cases closed with an average or above average client satisfaction rating or perhaps introduce a separate customer service rating KPI.

Dilbert and Why to Not Budget using Excel

For many smaller organizations with simple budgeting/forecasting needs, Excel works just fine.  However, as Dilbert points out below, there are certainly drawbacks to using Excel:

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2011-06-02

For organizations with more complicating needs, the value of a using a dedicated CPM solution for budgeting/forecasting and financial/management reporting are myriad, including:
- Simplify and better control the budgeting process
- Reduced administration of the budgeting cycle
- Increased collaboration
- Real time version control
- Mitigate speadsheet ‘mis-calculations’ and ‘overrides’
- Better manage security
- Historical tracking/audit of changes
- Integrated financial/management reporting solution to facilitate variance reporting
- Simply reforecasting administration