Comments for Wouter on Business Intelligence

Comment on Response to ‘A case of don’t kill the messenger’ by Ronald Damhof

Ronald Damhof — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:08:10 +0000

I think my tweet initially was that ‘the establishment was not happy’. And they were not – Stephen got burned big time and it was shamefull. I hold Stephen in high regard – he really knows his stuff, wrote some classic books etc..

He took on Forrester head on when they wrote about his expertise.The response of Forrester was simply something like ‘I have 30 year experience, how dare you…’. He was in his right to respond. And please, if you tend to disagree with someone it is hard to distinguish between the person and the sh*t he’s writing. So Stephen went for the ball and took the person with him…but in that order.

In the analyst commmunity nearly ALL took side…the side of forrester (source:twitter). For me, that was quite a shock. That ‘thought leaders’ took the side of the big analyst firm and did not went for the real arguments was quite a shock to me…..

Two exceptions; Mark Madsen and Neil Raden, where Neil Raden wrote the above post. I bow to these giants.

Comment on Bill Inmon’s versions of the truth by Rob Mol

Rob Mol — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:02:11 +0000

Bill Inmon makes a distinction between an ODS and a data warehouse.
The main difference is the volatility of the data and the focus on current-values (ODS) or data over a lengthy period of time.
So we only talk about different architectural layers.
A “data warehouse environment” can in this way serve both purposes (providing integrated operational data and providing integrated historical data).

I agree with Wouter and Lidwine that it can be useful to provide operations with historical data. In addition I think there is business value in providing the management with operational data (for instance for alerting of exceptional volumes of transactions).

So in my opinion there are two issues:
1. the business value (and the costs and risks) as the main factor in deciding which users may have access to which data in the ODS and/or the data warehouse;
2. the architectural discussion about ODS and data warehouse as different architectural layers or as one integrated data layer (logical or physical).

Comment on Bill Inmon’s versions of the truth by Lidwine van As

Lidwine van As — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:03:27 +0000

Spot on! Newly developed tools, if powerful and useful enough, often end up being used in ways their originator could not anticipate – that’s the story of IT. What do we gain by getting religious about “The One Right Way”, when expanding the use of existing assets and concepts helps people and organizations reach their goals? Smells like “Architecture For The Sake Of Architecture” to me.

Now if only we could get people to agree on those definitions…

Comment on A basic architecture framework & some first implications for BI by Wouter

Wouter — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:32:25 +0000

Nice thinking! The additional definition in IAF (sorry, not yet publicly available but upcoming) describes the output of an information architecture as “business information components that describe what and how information is used and how it flows around the business”. As far as my knowledge goes (the last time I used it was in ‘98, does it still exists??), FCO-IM does exactly that.

However, I also experienced that FCO-IM leads rather quickly to a high level of detail, whereas an information architecture initially requires an low level of detail (i.e. ‘large building blocks’)

Comment on A basic architecture framework & some first implications for BI by Martijn evers

Martijn evers — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:52:26 +0000

“The information architecture describes the information the business uses and their interrelationships. The information architecture typically is NOT a (conceptual) data model”

IMO a language driven conceptual data modelling technique like FCO-IM could form a substantial part of an Information architecture. From such a model you could generate descriptions, ontologies, identification taxonomy and business glossary.

I agree that ER conceptual models are not very helpful within an IA.

Comment on Enterprise architecture and BI: the prequel by Jorgen

Jorgen — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:55:01 +0000

Hé Wouter, Ik ben benieuwd naar je komende blogs. Hopelijk zie je kans het tempo er in te houden. De onderwerpen klinken goed.

Comment on BI is the same, not different by Enterprise architecture and BI: the prequel « Wouter on Business Intelligence

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:33:07 +0000

[...] they are two completely different things. So, in a sense this post is a sequel to the “BI is the same, not different” post. My mind is exploding with ideas and insights I want to share with you, so the next [...]

Comment on The need for rigourness by Dirk Koopman

Dirk Koopman — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:58:50 +0000

Especially the bad and the ugly. However: referencing succes stories is also often a hard job. Most succesfull implementations have had as well success as hard times. The hard times tend to be remembered longer…

The successes everybody talks about are often succeses claimed by marketing-specialized companies. Which leads to the following question: Wasn’t marketing one of the first real business implementations of BI, so where are our marketing stories?

Comment on The need for rigourness by Ronald Damhof

Ronald Damhof — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:00:42 +0000

intriguing post…Arnott said it in his article (JIT- 2005 – 20), the field of Decision Support needs more case studies.

I would like to add to this that we – as a communituy- need case studies showing not only the good, but also the bad and the ugly…

Made a reference on my blog to this post….

Comment on Book review: The profit impact of Business Intelligence by BI is the same, not different « Wouter on Business Intelligence

BI is the same, not different « Wouter on Business Intelligence — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:20:02 +0000

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