In a new post at Insurance Networking News Ara Trembly provides a balanced perspective on IT/business misalignment (Business/IT Misalignment: Whose Responsibility?). He describes the problem as cultural, more amenable to relational than management solutions. His conclusion sums it up: “Take a geek/suit to lunch today!”
To me (speaking as an IT professional) IT should take the initiative to solve the problem. Continue reading »
It seems I’m frequently in conversations about using null to represent a business value. To paraphrase, say there are credit and cash customers, and there’s a suggestion to set “Customer_Type” to “C” for credit and null for cash. To data and database professionals this is obviously a bad idea, but it’s not obvious from a business point of view. Continue reading »
While many organizations understand the value of managing the information resource, for many others information management remains abstract and difficult to define. In an effort to make it concrete here’s a hypothetical proposal to provide an Enterprise Information Architect for a hypothetical organization that really needs one. Continue reading »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Not everyone gets to be a leader, and most leaders are also followers in their own right. The project manager follows instructions from the project sponsor, the CEO from the board, the politicians from the polls, and so on.
Followership is the yang to leadership’s yin, and according to many interesting sources following can be as fulfilling and important as leadership. For example, check out this site: http://www.exe-coach.com/followerPartnership.html. Quoting: “When both the leader and follower are focused on the common purpose a new relationship between them arises. This new relationship is candid, respectful, supportive and challenging. It is a relationship that honors open communication, honesty and trust from both parties.“ The article argues that effective followership is the key to making today’s flat organizational models successful and mitigating risk of corporate malfeasance and scandal.
Think about it: more people are followers than leaders, so isn’t it more important to cultivate effective followership than effective leadership?
Recently I was asked for a high level requirements plan for a large IT conversion. I googled around a little for something standard. I found some good references (see links at the bottom of this post), but not exactly what I was looking for: a simple, method-agnostic layout of the high level steps and checkpoints in requirements for a big project, emphasizing interactions with business people. I then rifled my files to find the example below. Continue reading »