2009 March » Bob Lambert

Do your homework before presenting a BI business case

Mar 252009

Excerpt from "Show Me the Money: A DM/BI Business Value Primer", Bob Lambert and Tri Truong, Information Management Special Reports, March 24, 2009

Before starting the Business Intelligence business case, the BI advocate should do the homework required to ensure its success, including these essential steps:

1. Know the organization’s goals and objectives.
2. Identify a BI champion.
3. Identify and work with BI stakeholders.
4. Identify an application with tangible business value.
5. Define and quantify a quick win prototype project. Continue reading »

Grow your own row-level security

IT No Responses »

Mar 182009

Excerpt from "Protecting Your Data with Row Level Security for SQL Server Databases," March 17, 2009

Data security is not optional in today’s business environment. High-visibility hacking and fraud, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA regulations, and the Patriot Act all reinforce the need to present the right data to the right users and prevent the wrong ones from gaining access. Typically, “row level security” (RLS) is one requirement: to allow or permit access to particular users based on data in a particular database row. SQL Server does not provide built-in row level security. Continue reading »

Someone’s integrating your data

Data Management, IT No Responses »

Mar 122009

Here’s a little-recognized fact about data integration: if you run a business or any sizable chunk of one, someone is integrating your data.

In my professional life I have on occasion suggested data integration efforts. Sometimes my suggestions have been accepted and sometimes not. As an IT professional I understand that different managers have different priorities, and in a given business situation sometimes other things are more important for example than having a single, consistent source for all customer records, or making sure production data matches financial data.

But as a customer? That’s different. Continue reading »

Big project coming up? Learn to two-step.

IT, Project Management No Responses »

Mar 062009

History is littered with IT application projects that end late, go way over budget, or abandoned altogether. I was fortunate enough to see one work out really well (almost – please read on). It was no mistake. It came down to a simple method advocated by a gentleman named named John Carpenter.

The project was an HR management software conversion from one commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) package to another. The company concerned was conservative about spending money. A previous business case had proposed a similar project. The problem with that business case was that the benefits were really tough to conceptualize, so the cost/benefit analysis relied on soft benefits like “improved access to information” and “more consistent reporting data”. The folklore was that the CFO had physically thrown that business case out of his office. Continue reading »

Beware the devils in the details of data integration

Data Management, IT, Project Management No Responses »

Mar 012009

Excerpt from "Illusions, Allusions – Let’s Get Real about Database Design", October 4, 2002

Much of today’s IT application development – custom or off-the-shelf – involves integrating data from legacy systems, third- party software products and external data sources such as demographics or mail lists. More often than not, data integration is unexpectedly complex, either due to data quality issues or the nature of the data integration itself. Continue reading »

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