Business Intelligence in Real Life

Utilize existing SQL Code for your Report Generation with Pentaho

2012-01-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

I often get asked if developers can utilize SQL that they already use in their legacy reports within Pentaho and the answer is always a resounding YES! There are hardly if any companies out there that have not leveraged some type of Business Intelligence, even if it is generating csv files from a SQL query within a database. So there is a common concern when making any switch in technology, especially Business Intelligence/Analytics, and that is leveraging the work you have already done. here is a short video demonstration that show how easy it is to leverage Pentaho Report Designer to simply cut and paste your existing SQL code and how to extend that by parameterizing the report. Enjoy the video!

Increasing Pentaho's Data Sampling Set to Sample your entire CSV File

2012-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

Pentaho offers a very valuable capability in that you can quickly and easily prototype your data using a CSV file as your source data for the prototype. Pentaho will bring in the CSV file, automatically profile the data and set the data types and lengths. One important thing to note here, however, is the default sampling list is set to 200 rows. I would recommend that you increase this limit to the size of your CSV file. For example, if you have a CSV file that contains 10,000 rows, I would increase the limit to 10,000. The next obvious question is how do I do this? Well, it really is easy, just follow these simple steps:

Open the following file in a text editor: C:\Program Files\pentaho\server\biserver-ee\pentaho-solutions\system\data-access\settings.xml
Change the default value that is located in the following tag to the desired sampling amount: data-access-csv-sample-rows>10000/data-access-csv-sample-rows> (in this tag I have increased it to 10000)
Restart your BI Server

This will help ensure that you have a success production of your prototype so that you can show your end users how easy Pentaho is to use to slice and dice their data, build reports and dashboards.

Scheduling Transformations and Jobs and Pentaho Data Integration

2012-01-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Exception Reporting Can Dramatically Save Time and Money

2012-01-03T08:57:00.000-08:00

Business Intelligence has been around for a very long time and all companies have at least some form of it, whether it is a written ledger or whether they are using the most cutting edge, advanced and innovative BI solution such as Pentaho ;). That being said, Exception Reporting is still not widely used in today's business. What exactly is exception reporting? I am glad you asked.

Exception reporting is a method of reporting that, well, reports on the exceptions, which is A person or thing that is excluded from a general statement or does not follow a rule. One of the key words is "rule", so to really be able to effectively do exception reporting, a business must have some key business rules in place in order to know what exception they are looking for, here are a couple of industry specific examples:

Customer Service Example

Have you ever eaten fast food? I am sure you have and you probably have noticed when going through a drive through that many of them have a timer clock by the window showing the current wait time. Why is this? This is because the company has deemed it important to monitor what the average wait time is for their customers. The smaller the average the higher the customer satisfaction...hence the name...fast food. The timer is there for the benefit of the line workers. Shift managers are well aware of what the acceptable average wait times are and are often compensated for staying within range or even beating expectations. What exception reporting does is collects all the information and presents it from a summary down to a granular basis. Follow me here...Somewhere, back at corporate there is a person who is responsible for managing what the average wait time is for their customers among other things. Now this person cannot sit there just staring at a dashboard that says what the average wait time is, so what they have done is setup some exception reporting. To do this, they have defined the acceptable limits in which the company allows. For example, an acceptable wait time is anywhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. Any time the average falls above that range, the responsible party is notified and is offered the ability to click on the number and receive a list of only those stores that are above the limits along with what their average wait time currently is.

Financial Example

Financial institutions commonly have very strict regulations that they must abide by and these regulations change often. Due to this, they often have implement a vast array of different information systems needed to meet these regulations. The problem is that now they have the burden of making sure that these systems are in balance. Any time you increase the complexity and diversity of all these information systems, you typically run into a data integration nightmare. You have data spread out among many systems, some of them duplicated and some not. In regards to the data that must be duplicated, it is important that those systems be able to reconcile with each other. Recently, I helped a company be able to do this. Their current process was to receive a report from one of their financial systems via a PDF, due to the system being a SaaS application with certain limitations and reconcile that with a legacy system they have. It was a few people job to look at this report that was over 2,000 pages and compare account balances across both systems. When the balances did not match, they had to look at the detail information and make any appropriate journal entries in order to correct it. Since neither of these systems "talked" to each other, this was a very hands on, manual process. Well, a little bit of know how and of course Pentaho, they now are able to connect to both systems and compare balances automatically and create a report that only contains accounts that don't reconcile with drill down to detail capability...saving days of several FTEs (full time employees).

Pentaho is rather unique in that the way our Data Integration and Business Analytics are architected, performing exception reporting is well exceptional. My apologies for such a corny ending...but...I am a father of 5...one has to have a sense of humor at this point ;)

BTW - Happy New Years to all my blog followers, I appreciate all your views!

Reporting from Multiple Disparate Data Sources

2011-11-16T10:45:00.001-08:00

One of the many powerful features of Pentaho is the ability for Pentaho Reporting and Pentaho Data Integration to seamlessly work together. This example will walk through a typical use case within many organizations. Let's say you want to report of multiple disparate data sources. You may have a database, a csv file, and a flat file that you want to be able to join the data together and report from but you don't want to have to combine this data in a data store. Additionally, you may want to give the end users the ability to sort this data.

USE CASE - Reporting from Raw Call Log Summary Information

I have a client who has accesses to some summary telephony data that records the outbound calling of their agents. Besides having a record of these outbound calls, they have another solution that also records the inbound calls. This inbound system reporting is a separate from their outbound system in terms of the storage of that data. Both outbound and inbound record sets records the same information, AgentID, CallType, and Duration. The outbound data file CallType column all contain the same CallType of outbound and the inbound data file has the value of inbound. They want to merge these disparate files and also lookup the AgentID from another source that lists all their agents with their corresponding IDs, this way on their report they can list the agent name instead of their ID.

SOLUTION - Pentaho Data Integration and Pentaho Report Designer

Pentaho Data Integration

What I have done is use PDI to bring all the data together and make it available for Report Designer. The transformation is made up of the following steps:

CSV file input - This is the outbound call records
Excel Input - This is the inbound call records
Append Streams - This merges the outbound and inbound records into one data set
Stream Lookup - This step looks up the value of AgentID in order to get the Agent Name
CSV file input 2 - This step contains the AgentID along with the corresponding Agent Name
Sort rows - This sorts the rows by Agent Name
Unique Rows - This returns a list of Unique Agent Names use in the parameter list within our report
Create Parameter - This defines a parameter that will be used to filter the results
Filter rows - This will use the parameter to filter out the desired results
Filtered Results - Displays all the desired results
Non Matching Results - Displays all the results that were not selected

Once this transformation is created then it needs to be exported as an .ktr (xml) file and is now ready to be consumed by Report Designer.

Pentaho Report Designer

Once in Report Designer I can create a report and add a Pentaho Data Integration data source. All I will need to do is point to that transformation location (this is the .ktr file that you exported from Pentaho Data Integration). When you bring that transformation into Report Designer, it will ask you to select which step to utilize. This give you the ability to report from any point within the data integration step listed above. For this example, we will consume information from the Filtered Results step. In this report, we are also building a parameter which allows end users of this report to select which Agent they want to view the data for. We are dynamically building this list by selecting the Unique Rows step in our data integration transformation.

In order to get this example to work in your environment, you will need to download the files here, these files include:

Multiple Sources with Parameter.ktr - Transformation
Sample Report from three Sources with Parm.prpt - Report
outbound.csv - Contains outbound call log data
inbound.xls - Contains inbound call log data
agentLookup.csv - Contains Agent Name lookup by AgentID Data

Make the following modifications to the Multiple Sources with Parameter.ktr file:

Open the Multiple Sources with Parameter.ktr by going into Pentaho Data Integration and selecting File -> Import from an XML File
Edit the following steps and point them to the files you downloaded:

CSV file input - point to outbound.csv
Excel Input - point to inbound.xls
CSV file input 2 - point to agentLookup.csv

Save transformation (this will save it to your repository)
Export the transformation to the location where you saved the original (you can overwrite the original)

Make the following changes in the Sample Report from three Sources with Parm.prpt in Report Designer:

Open the Report in Report Designer
Click on the "Data" tab on the right side of Report Designer
Double Click "Agent List" under the Pentaho Data Integration Data Set, browse to your recently saved and exported transformation and select the "Unique rows" step in the steps list.
Double Click "Query 1" under the Pentaho Data Integration Data Set, browse to your recently saved and exported transformation and select the "Filtered Results" step in the steps list.
Click on the preview button to see it work.

Keep in mind that if you want to publish this report to your BI Server you will have to bring the Multiple Sources with Parameter.ktr as a report resource, for more information on this, please see the Using a Pentaho Data Integration Data Source with the Pentaho Report Designer blog entry I did back in May

Download Example Files Here

Application Integration using Pentaho Data Integration

2011-11-14T18:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I was on a call where the person wanted to be able to easily access their data base and make that data available to other applications via both xml and Json. Some of their other applications require XML but they have a few that also use Json and as an organization, they are moving toward consuming Json as well. This will show an example on how you can easily use Pentaho Data Integration to gain access to any data source (for this example we will use the sample database that comes with Pentaho).

Use Case Example - Customer Payment Information

Currently Acme Company has all of their customer payment information in a database and they want to expose that information to a new application financial forecasting system that will help them better forecast:

How likely a particular customer is in making future payments
Segment customer based on their Accounts Receivables Turnover
What is the trend in Accounts Receivables Turnover

This new financial forecasting application can accept data via either XML or Json. The first step is to build a simple transformation made up of three steps.

Table Input Step - This step will pull back data from the database
XML Output Step - This step will convert the data into a XML format
Json Output Step - This step will convert the data into a Json format

The answer to how Pentaho can do this is similar to the famous quote from Fried Green Tomatoes, "The secret is in the sauce." In both the XML Output and the Json Output, Pentaho has a very cool feature that is enabled by a simple check box, it is the "Pass output to servlet" checkbox. In other words, this exposes Pentaho Data Integration data over a web service. Matt Casters has also documented this on his blog here.

In order to test the example, simply import the .ktr in the link below into Pentaho Data Integration and save it to your Pentaho Data Integration Enterprise Repository and access via a simple url call:

http://localhost:9080/pentaho-di/kettle/executeTrans/?rep=Enterprise%20Repository&user=joe&pass=password&trans=/home/joe/json1

The transformation gives you two options for XML or Json Output. To switch between the two different output formats, open the transformation and enable/disable the appropriate hop.

NOTE: This url call is specific to a generic installation of Pentaho Enterprise Edition. The default installation port number is 9080, yours may vary depending on your installation

Download Transformation Here

Use Case: Grouping by Time, A Call Center Story

2011-10-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Recently a company that operates a rather large call center came to Pentaho to help them be able to better analyze their data and gain better insight to the performance and efficiency of their agents. One of the issues they had was that they wanted to see their call center data grouped by particular time categories so that they can better manage staffing for peak hours of the day as well as view who are the top performing agents in terms of volume. They had some basic information but the problem was that they wanted to have the grouping within the database so that they can gain some additional performance in pre-aggregating the data, due to the large volume of calls that are occurring. Here is a sample of what the data looked like (the sample below is only sample data generated by a sample data generator).

The first step in this process is to make the data "BI Ready", in other words take the data and convert to information by enriching it and grouping it by the designated time buckets, for this particular example they want to bucket their time in 15 minute increments starting from 8:00 to 5:00 (the operating hours of the call center). In this example, I am only using a snapshot of data ranging from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM. This will allow them to answer questions like

During what time span (within 15 minutes) is the call volume the highest?
What time categories have the highest volume of incoming calls?
What time categories have the highest volume of outbound calls?

The end transformation looks like this:

Transformation Detailed Description

Read Call Center Data from CSV - This is a csv Input Step that reads in the data from the CSV file. This does not have to be a csv file but can be almost any flat file, database, web service, etc.

Convert Date-Time to String - This is a Select Values step that allows you to rename or change the type of any of your fields, in this step we are converting the date-time to a string in order to split it into two different fields, one field that contains only date and the other only time.

Split Date-Time Field - Field Splitter allows you to split any string field based on a common requirement. In this example because the date-time field called BeginDate in our csv file has a date-time field that is a format where the date and time are separated by a space, we use that as the delimiter to split the field.

Convert Time to Number - The convert time to number is used to convert the Time field that we created in the previous step to a number in order to do our grouping into time ranges.

Create Time Range - This step will create a new column called TimeGroup, read in the rows of data, look at the time field set the appropriate value to the newly created field. For this example we are creating four groups: 8:00 AM to 8:15 AM, 8:15 AM to 8:30 AM, 8:30 AM to 8:45 AM, and 8:45 AM to 9:00 AM.

Convert Time to Time Format - This step converts the time field back to the time data type for reporting purposes.

Dummy (do nothing) - this step, as it implies does nothing, at this point you can load the data directly into a database, flat file, etc.

The end result of this transformation looks like this:

Download the zip file here for youto run this transformation. In order for it to work, you will need to import the .ktr file and then make sure to change the path of the csv file in the first step to the location of where you saved the csv file that is included in the .zip file.

Pentaho Data Integration Sample Library

2011-10-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

When you download Pentaho and run our Data Integrationclient tool (also known as Spoon), you also get a huge library of sampletransformations that can help you build out your solution. The great thing about these sampletransformation and jobs is that they are all working samples, so you can testand learn by following the entire flow. There are over 150 working sample transformation and over 40 workingjobs. You can access thesetransformation and jobs anytime by going to the following directory:

[Install Directory]\pentaho\design-tools\data-integration\samples

To use any of these transformation in Pentaho DataIntegration follow these three easy steps:

Start Pentaho Data Integration Client Tool (Spoon)
Go to File > Import from an XML File
Browse to the samples library location statedabove and select the sample you wish to view and run.

At Pentaho, the best just keeps getting better!!!

2011-10-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

At Pentaho, the best just keeps getting better:

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/-1568941.htm

Improving Performance with Pentaho Data Integration Table Input and Oracle

2011-09-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

When using Pentaho Data Integration Table Input step to connect to Oracle via a JDBC connection there is a setting in your connection information that you can specify that can dramatically improve your performance in retrieving data. This property is the defaultRowprefetch. Oracle JDBC drivers allow you to set the number of rows to prefetch from the server while the result set is being populated during a query. Prefetching row data into the client reduces the number of round trips to the server. The default value for this property is 10.

In the table input step, edit your connection, click on the options tab and then enter in your defaultRowprefetch specification:

Creating drill down on charts within Report Designer

2011-08-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Report Designer has the capability of creating charts which you can link the individual values to other reports, creating a drill down chart. This document will help you to create a working example of this using the sample data that comes with Pentaho in addition to a canned sample report that comes with Pentaho (the Order Status report located under the Steel Wheels > Reporting solution folder).

Create a new report with Report Designer and add a JDBC connection with the Sample Data and enter the following SQL into the Query Dialog Box.SELECT "ORDERFACT"."STATUS", sum("CUSTOMER_W_TER"."CREDITLIMIT") AS Sales FROM "ORDERFACT" INNER JOIN "CUSTOMER_W_TER" ON "ORDERFACT"."CUSTOMERNUMBER" = "CUSTOMER_W_TER"."CUSTOMERNUMBER" WHERE "ORDERFACT"."STATUS" NOT LIKE 'Shipped' GROUP BY "ORDERFACT"."STATUS" ORDER BY "ORDERFACT"."STATUS" ASC

Add a chart to the Report Header in your new Report and configure it to be a bar chart showing the sales per order status

Link to the existing Order Status report located on the BI Server under Steel Wheels\Reporting folder

Make sure the formula reads as follows:

=DRILLDOWN("local-prpt"; NA(); {"oStatus"; ["chart::category-key"] | "showParameters"; [STATUS] | "solution"; "steel-wheels" | "path"; "reports" | "name"; "Order Status.prpt"})

Preview the Report in HTML and click on the "On Hold" bar to see the drilldown action:

Download the sample .prpt file by clicking here.

or watch the demonstration:

Pentaho reporting and canned reports for distributed solutions

2011-08-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

So recently I came across a use case that I helped someone work through that I thought my audience would find useful. Here it is;

Use Case

A company wants to offer Pentaho as the BI Application with their current solution. As part of this solution they want to create some canned reports that has the logo of the customer that is using their solution. Each customer will have the same report, because it is a report that is common across all their customers, however, they want the logo on the report to be that of the customer. Additionally, the solution is installed on premise at each individual customer site so the location of their solution in relation to the web application will be different for each customer (in other words, the installation and configuration of the Pentaho BI Server is different at each customer). In order to accomplish this in Report Designer, they must do the following steps:

Place an image in the report
Put the location of that image as an Open Formula consisting of: =[env::serverBaseURL] & "/pentaho/GetResource?resource=solution/folder_path/image_name.png

Here is a video presentation demonstrating this:

Pentaho 4.0 - Bursting in Pentaho Data Integration

2011-06-27T11:44:00.001-07:00

Download instructions on customizing the Transformation

Download the transformation here

For more information on the new Pentaho BI Suite 4.0, please visit Pentaho.com

AgileBI with Pentaho Business Intelligence

2011-05-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

This is about a 9 minute demonstration on AgileBi using Pentaho Data Integration...

Pentaho LDAP Integration

2011-05-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

In this short video I give a quick demonstration of Pentaho integrated with a 3rd Party LDAP. I will be working on creating a cheat sheet on how to configure what I show in the video, but for now...for your viewing enjoyment...I give you the video:

Using a Pentaho Data Integration Data Source with the Pentaho Report Designer

2011-05-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Pentaho Report Designer can consume an exported Pentaho Data Integration Transformation file (.ktr) as a data source to provide data to a Pentaho Report. The following steps walk you through the best practice when using this type of data source.

1. Export your transform to XML… from Pentaho Data Integration and save your .ktr file to a location on your computer

2. Import your transformation into your report as a Resource. In Report Designer, create a new blank report, select File -> Resources... -> IMPORT -> Select the ".." and browse to the transformation you exported in step 1, input an Entry Name (this name will be referenced later so please remember it), and then select text/xml for the Content-Type, then click OK and Close.

3. Right click on Data Sets and Select "Pentaho Data Integration", click the "add a new query" button

4. Build your report and publish it to the server as you normally would.

5. Please note that a Transformation with a limited result set (limited number of rows) is recommended at first. The design process will pull data from the transformation in real-time.

6. Publish to and access from Pentaho BI Server as you normally would any other Pentaho Report

7. There is a reference Techcast in greater detal located here:
https://pentaho.webex.com/pentaho/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=34651817&rKey=d8748782d7bcdaa1

Personal Business Intelligence

2010-12-19T15:01:00.000-08:00

One definite benefit to working for a business intelligence company is having access to some of the coolest technology out there. I am one very busy person...sure working for the standard in Commercial Open Source Business Intelligence vendor Pentaho keeps me extremely busy with so many companies making the switch, I am also a single Dad raising 5 kids. As you can imagine, raising 5 kids requires a lot of management, one key area is where it gets rather expensive and I need to keep a good eye on is medical expenses...especially since they are tax deductible.

So what do my kids medical expenses have to do with Pentaho? Simple...with Pentaho, I can easily upload my data and use AgileBI to quickly analyze, gain insight, and take action on the information. Here is a screen shot of my kids medical dashboard:

As you can see here...Emily is my most accident prone kid, she represents the only child that has had the pleasure of visiting the emergency room. Additionally, I may need to make sure she is spending adequate time brushing her teeth as I see she represents a large portion of the dental expense. It also seems that I tend to spend a significant more on medical expenses during the school year...I guess when the kids are not at school, they tend to pick up less germs from the other students.

So in the end, this is not rocket science, but I guess that is my point...Pentaho has made is so easy to connect to data I already keep track of for my family and turn that data into information and help me see trends in my medical spending.

Radical Innovation

2010-09-14T12:41:00.001-07:00

Still working on my recording, unfortunately Camtasia is not as easy to work with as Pentaho...speaking of Pentaho, I recently read an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review, "Wall Street Is No Friend to Radical Innovation" by Julia Kirby. In it she talkes about a study by Mary Benner of the Wharton School that was publish in Organization Science that examined the way that security analysts research and report on incumbent firms in industries undergoing disruptive change (take for example BI). "She finds that analysts tend to speak glowingly about innovations from major players that extend old technology, while downplaying the initiatives those firms have under way to capitalize on the next wave of technology"

To this I say, hmmm, and look at the latest press releases of Pentaho and say to Wall Street...don't miss out, here are only two of many examples:

Cheers!

The Right Tool For The Job - Part 2

2010-07-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

In continuation of my previous post...I already had a tool to perform the duties I needed to changes the brakes but having just the right tool made all the difference in the time it took to successfully complete the task at hand. Took less time...and time is money!

The same holds true in BI. In the July/Aug 2010 issue of Information Management Magazine they had an articaled called Data Definition, How business and IT can speak the same language, Really. Notice how they added the word "Really" on the end of the title. This is because their is a LONG standing gap in the way IT understands data and the way that information consumers (business users) look at data. I don't know about you but nothing sounds more boring to me than defining data! I remember having vocabulary in most of my schooling where the teacher would assign a long list of words and your homework was to write out the definitions, not what I want to do on a Friday night. Looking back, that task was much easier than the daunting task for companies to define their data. The article referenced to above outlines what makes a clear or unclear data definition and one thing is certain, it takes BOTH IT and BUSINESS USERS to define data and is often a recursive task.

The article recommends the following strategy for defining your data:

Provide examples of unclear versus clear definitions
Understand what the business user wants to do with the data
Bring all stakeholders together to review the definition

While step one is relatively easy to accomplish, Steps 2 and 3 are very difficult. The main reason is the way that IT and Business have to communicate together. This is where the right tool for the job comes in to play. You can either call it Pentaho Agile BI or simply mana from heaven. Either way you slice it, Pentaho Agile BI gives you the ability to complete items 2 and 3 above more quickly then anything else out there. Agile BI is the LINK that empowers IT and Business Users to "Speak the same language...Really!" In the coming week, I will be making a video demonstration on exactly what this looks like...make sure to check back to see!

The Right Tool For the Job!

2010-06-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Some people would call me mechanically inclined and while others may call me mechanically challenged...either way...I tend to work on my vehicle probably more than the average person. One common maintenance activity that I do perform myself is changing the brakes on my vehicle. This is a fairly simple job in terms of concept but can be tedious due to the difficulty of getting to and working with the specific areas on the vehicle. For years I worked on these projects and it would typically take me about two hours to complete until one day, I was at an auto parts store and saw a special tool that was made specifically for part of the job of changing the brakes. It was like a gift from heaven, with this new tool, I was able to change the brakes in about 45 minutes with a lot less sweat and head ache.

So what does changing brakes have to do with BI? Nothing at all! However, the connection has to do with how using the right tool can help save you a lot of time and head ache in implementing and maintaining your BI environment. You may be successful right now but as some people say, "you don't know what you don't know" and you may have the opportunity to be even more successful. In the next few blog posts, I am going to talk about how Pentaho can help you just like me finding the right tool to help me change my brakes.

Flexibility and Complexity in Business Intelligence

2009-04-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Where to star, where to start? Let's begin by defining what I mean by Flexibility and Complexity:

Flexibility - The ability to do what you need to do. In regards to BI or technology in general, it is the ability to build a custom application to meet your specific, customized needs.

Complexity - The measure of how difficult a particular task, system, technology, what have you, is. This term is also used many times as usability, which is not necessarily true. Something may be very usable to an engineer but not to a typical user.

Many times, too many to count, I have companies requesting a BI tool that "Offers great flexibility and powerful enough for developers to use but easy enough for end users to use as well". This is a very common misplaced expectation that people have. The reason is simple, there is an direct relationship between flexibility and complexity. Take a look at this graph and you will see what I mean.

Basically, the more flexibility that you require a technology, a tool, a software package to be, the more complex it becomes. Think about it this way...let's say you wanted to buy a car. You go to the show room and the only choice you have is one car and two colors, red or blue. That is a very simple decision, basically what color do you prefer? This option offers very little flexibility, however, it offers very little complexity in making a decision. Now let's take this a step further, the dealer offers you the following option, you can choose between a 2.1 ltr engine or a 3.4 ltr engine, you also can choose between a regular gas or hybrid. You also get to choose between 5 different stereo packages, an extended warranty, leather or cloth seats, 5 speaker or 8 speaker system, tow package, child safety features. All of these options increase the flexibility you have in owning a car that meets your specific needs (flexibility), however, now the decision you have is much more complex. You need to research the benefits of hybrid over gas, 5 speaker or 8, extended warranty or not. You see with these added options (flexibility) comes added complexity in you final decision making.

Technology is the same way, especially when it comes to Business Intelligence. When a user comes to me and asks me for a tool that is flexible enough to meet all the needs of a BI developer while making it very easy to use (not complex), it tells me that they do not have very much experience evaluating enterprise level software solutions. Enterprise software companies spend much time and expense in developing tools that meet the needs of specific user communities. So what I have done is taken the chart above and added the different user groups.

Going through my stats on my blog I notice I get a lot of hits from people who are looking at implementing BI and to those people I say, keep this chart in mind. Evaluate each individual tool for the intended audience and do not try to solve your problem with a "fits all sizes" approach because we all know that "one size fits all" does not mean "fits like a glove" but rather "minimum required to accomplish its basic task"

Information Over Load

2009-03-16T11:33:00.001-07:00

Information Over Load

I love technology. Technology has improved my life greatly, especially considering my income is completely related to technology. There is a downside to all this technology though and I don't think that we may even be able to scratch the surface on how all of this will affect our future. When a pharmaceutical company comes out with a new drug, it must first go through rigid testing to find out how that drug may adversely affect us. There may be some benefit to analyze our technology this way as well.

Facebook.com, MySpace.com, Linkedin.com, and Twitter.com are some fairly recent examples of new and innovative Web 2.0 type applications that are having a profound affect on our society. Take facebook, my daughters are constantly on facebook, they chat with their friends, send them messages, post pictures. If you ever want to know what is going on in their life, you don't need to sit down at the dinner table, simply log onto facebook and you will find out everything. My point in all this is that today, there is a ton of information out there for anything and anyone. We are constantly being bombarded by information, status updates, profile updates, picture updates, tweets, twitters, whatever. This presents a new problem moving forward.

In the past, businesses had a difficult time making decisions due to not having enough information. Business Intelligence is around because companies need access to crucial information that was buried deep down in their computer systems and again, the problem that was typical was that they could not get to the information, therefore, limiting the amount of data you had access to. I think we can all agree that technology has come to a point that we are really no longer limited by it. We are now limited by the processing power of the human brain. I believe it was in the book Good to Great where author Jim Collins wrote in one of the chapters about a brokerage firm and how they were able to maximize the effectiveness of their brokers. They did a study to find out what the maximum number of contacts could handle without letting any fall through the cracks...these contacts would include both actual clients and prospects. You see the brokers would spend hours and hours on the phone, making hundreds of dials a day...they are limited to the number of times they could dial the phone and reach the person they were intending to reach. Factor in time for dial, leaving voice mail, missing a returned call, calling prospects and clients back calculated to 300 contacts in their 'books'. At the time I read this I was the IT Director at a major investment relations firm. So what did I do? Using the data I had been collecting on our call center, I wrote a BI application to analyze the results that Jim Collins found and I was able to verify the information and make the appropriate recommendations to our sales.

Similar to brokers only having enough cycles to handle a book (list of prospects and clients) of about 300, information consumers only have enough bandwidth and brain power to handle only so much information. For example, think of the CEO in your company. He has information coming to him constantly. It may be human resources related, sales related, operations related, production/manufacturing related, marketing related, merger and acquisition related, external economics related, personal/family related. Our brains can only handle so much at a time, and we cannot upgrade to a brain clustered environment. All of this information is competing with each other. So the question is how much information can we handle before we reach information overload and start blocking out things....or information starts falling through the cracks. I was once consulting with a company on developing their web presence and when we were discussing the home page of their site, I asked, what I thought at the time was a relatively simple question, "What is the most important thing you want to point out about your company?" The answer they gave me was frustrating.....they said,"everything". This resulting in a hours long discussion about, if everything stands out then nothing stands out. It reminds me of a despair.com saying, "You are special, just like everyone else".

What does this long rant have to do with BI? Well, BI is presenting information that is simply just noise among noise. It is information that is fed to whichever information consumer we deem to require it and we expect the end user to determine it's importance. Here is what we need...we need a system that can automatically inform us in a manner that will give it a larger priority over all the other noise and in a way we understand and respond to. This is where technology innovation has to meet creativity. Stephen Few has some good examples and blogs about meaningful ways to present data in an efficient and concise manner.

The purpose of this post is not to give you a solution to this problem but rather present a discussion point on how BI can help become a filter for all of this noise.

Do you know your data?

2009-02-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

Some things never cease to amaze me. BusinessIntellienge (according to Wikipedia) has been around for over 50 years. Despite this fact, all too often companies are inadequately providing the basic foundation for Business Intelligence. Here is one small example….knowing what data you use to make decisions. Whether it is a government organization, public company, or private company, they typically know what information they need to make their most important decisions, at least from a business perspective, however, from a data perspective, IT typically has very little insight into what data is actually being used.

Let’s check out a typical example. I have seen countless times where companies are implementing new systems that require major database changes. Well, when these changes are made, IT typically has a very difficult time determining exactly what data is being used, by what reports, by which users, not to mention how many times. Now if you think about it, this is very important information. In our society now, it is easy to get lost in data, there are so many sources of information, such as this blog, news sites, facebook, myspace, linkedin, drudgereport. I think we all can agree that the problem is not if the information exist, it is, can we find it and if we can, can we connect to it. So why are the questions about the data so important?

What data is being used? By whom? How often? This is important, especially when implementing solutions such as a data warehouse. Data Warehouse implementation can be very costly and often fail even after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars above what the budget required. Many of these failures can be prevented by the ability of knowing the answer to these questions. I have been working on a project where I an organization has to transfer 200 reports that are on their legacy system and have recreate them using Crystal Reports on their new ERP system. The process is to analyze each report, find out what fields were used to create that particular report and then look to see if the data was converted to the new ERP system. What sense does this make? All of these reports are considered mission critical by this organization, so my question is why is a field in a report that is mission critical no longer available in the new ERP system. A best practice approach could have been taken here before the data conversion process if the organization new which reports were mission critical and were able to generate a report that listed all the fields within those reports.

While I was at Information Builders, Inc. using WebFOCUS, they had a fantastic product called Resource Analyzer that at a click of a button, you would have access to hundred of reports that gives you the ability to analyze what data is being used, by whom, how often. Not only that, but it could also provide you with some what if analysis…for example…what if I removed this field from our database? What reports would that affect? What users would be affected? I don’t know about you but before I make any major changes I definitely want to make sure I know the impact it will have on upper management.

Be your own Gartner! What BI tools have you used and how do YOU rank them?

2009-02-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

This particular post is really to solicit comments and get an interaction of BI professionals and users on their experience with BI tools and how they rank them. If you have ever used a BI tool, please comment on which ones and the pros and cons you have for each of them. Constructive feedback only, this is not meant to be a vendor bashing opportunity or a vendor promoting opportunity and those type of comments will not make it. Just plain old honest feedback.

At the very least, simply fill out the survey to the right ----------->

Five Critical Criteria to start your BI Initiative

2009-01-29T07:50:00.001-08:00

1. Desire Intelligence

This may sound like a given, right? Well, not necessarily. Often times I have seen companies approach a BI initiative simply because it is a current industry trend, other CIO’s are doing it so why don’t we. If our competitors are doing it then we need to stay competitive and do it as well. WRONG! Like many things in life, doing something because you feel like you feel like you are forced to will only result in a half hazard attempt and ending in a costly mistake. So the first step, the first requirement to start a BI initiative is to desire intelligence. You must crave it, want it, need it, hunger after it, you get the message. What does that really mean? You must have a passion for improving your organization through the gathering and analyzing data and applying intelligence in order to turn that data into usable, actionable, priceless information.

Example - While working for a BI vendor, we had a new branch manager come in and he started to immediate gather and analyze information on the current branch he just acquired. Looking at contracts that were in place, looking at opportunities that were in the pipeline and most importantly looking at the employees. All this to ensure that this branch would be successful. During my interview with him, he mentioned to me that he was unsure of what to think about me because I did not have a long history of selling enterprise level software and as a sales engineer that is important. Well after about an hour of discussion, he told me that he knew that I would be successful because I was extremely passionate about Business Intelligence and helping our customers achieve success. He was less concerned at that point about what I have done in the past because he was confident of what I will do in the future. This is an example of how we should approach BI, like the branch manager, come into the project with the desire to learn and analyze the data, recognize passion and don’t let the past be a stumbling block…we will get more to that point in criteria #3.

2. Know your Business and your Industry

Okay, now I may sound like I am contradicting myself because earlier I said that you shouldn’t go after BI just because it is a popular thing to do or your competitors are doing it. In context that is true, the entire process should start with desire to make your organization more intelligent. Another thought here is, “Of course I know my business”. Fair enough but many times when an organization is implementing some type of Business Intelligence solution, it is lead by the IT department. While the IT group in your organization may be very familiar with your business and industry, it is only secondary to their knowledge of technology. Those running the business, those responsible for the primary activities of the revenue generating functions of your business are really the ones who should lead these types of projects. Without a business sponsor, the project is surely on a path of failure.

3. Forget about limitations

Another critical reason for these types of initiatives to be driven by the business and not IT is it is much easier for the business to forget about limitations. Business Intelligence is all about innovation, which I will be blogging about in the coming week (innovation that is). A major adversary of innovation are limitations. By first taking into consideration our limitations, we automatically limit the possibilities and success of our solutions. If IT were driving this type of project, they would automatically be biased by technology limitations. So know your thinking, “What good is it to come up with an idea that is impossible, that just wastes time and money.” Oh contraire mon fraire, you see as humans we always limit ourselves by what we know. Just because we do not know how to do it doesn’t mean it cannot be done. I learned this lesson the hard way; I was the IT Director for a company whose CEO was constantly coming up with impossible ideas. In the beginning, the phrase, “We can’t do that, that is impossible” was a common phrase being thrown around. After repeating that over and over and after reading Bill Gates book “Business at the speed of thought”, I realized that I was too quick to make this statement. This realization helped me create many solutions at that company that was years in advanced of what was commercially available, and believe it or not, at a fraction of the cost. It is a natural human propensity to limit ourselves by our own knowledge.

On the business side, make sure you do not think also in terms of what is available, don’t limit yourself to knowledge you know is within your industry but rather information that may be outside your industry but has a direct or indirect affect on your business. For example, I was working with a prospect on a potential solution, when learning their process for forecasting, I learned that they use over 25 different variables in order to forecast their product manufacturing. They were able to look beyond their history, so in other words, they did not just look at past performance but rather measured that performance against other variables to establish a relationship and conversely apply that relationship toward future trends of those variables, for example consumer confidence, gasoline prices, new home sales, all of these examples require data that is most likely not controlled by your organization but by leveraging this type of out of our boundaries data you can make your organization much more intelligent.

4. Don’t forget what you learned in grade school

I know you learned a lot of basic stuff in grade school but here I am referring to more specifically your science class, remember, the one Ms. Wilson taught, the one about the scientific method. Just in case you do not remember, here they are (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml) :

a. Ask a Question

b. Do your Research

c. Construct a Hypothesis

d. Test your Hypothesis

e. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion

f. Communicate your results

Following this method will help you form what your solution should be.

5. Break requirements up into must have and nice to have

The “Communicate your results” in the scientific method actually makes up this portion of the criteria of success. You must document everything you have learned up until this point in order to gain support for your new BI initiatives. This information will be vital in generating expected ROI. This document will also be vital in the next phase of your BI implementation which is selecting a technology vendor. In the coming week I will outline some guidelines in selecting a technology vendor, and you may be surprised by what I say.

My New Blog

2008-09-19T06:47:00.001-07:00

Just to let everyone know. This will be my first and final announcement of a new blog I have started...it is my personal blog to cover subject ranging from religion to politics....hmmmm...very controversial huh.

Here it is ----> http://arubawayne2.blogspot.com/

Success comes IF

2008-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

My kids had to memorize this poem for school. That was the first time I heard it and I thought it was probably one of the most powerful poems I have ever read.

IF - by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

2008 Election - The Most Important Issue

2008-01-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

With the election in full swing, I wanted to make clear that this election has only ONE important issue that must be addressed, everything else depends on this one issue. What issue is this? It is NATIONAL SECURITY. We can spend all day debating whether or not we should have government healthcare (socialized healthcare), fair tax, abortion rights, etc, however, one important factor is that there is no need depating any of these issues if we have no country!

Some may think, wow Wayne, that is quite alarming and that is just a scare tactic. For all of you that think this I challenge you to read Glenn Beck's new book, An Inconvenient Book.

Saddam's Hanging

2007-01-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

Saddam Hussein was executed a couple of days ago and there are is a video of it. Several month's ago I would have rejoiced in the death of Saddam but my outlook seems to be different now that it has actually happened. Most people will read this and say WHAT! But let me explains my points:

1. Do I think Saddam got what he deserved? Of course, he was an evil man. He killed many people and was a savage. He idolized Hitler and got 100% what he deserved. I do think justice was served.

2. Do I think there was a better way to server justice? Not really, I believe in the death penalty and so I believe the punishment fit the crime.

3. So why are you not happy? Well I not only think of Saddam as a tyrannical dictator responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people but I also think of him as a soul. I am not casting judgement for it is not my place to do so but rather God's, however, based that he went down without any "change of heart", his soul was lost. I don't think Christians should rejoice whenever a soul has been lost. We can rejoice that he cannot kill or hurt anyone anymore but we also grieve for the loss of a soul.

At the end of the day, the death of Saddam is bitter sweet. I would imagine that it would be more sweet to me if he had a direct impact on my life such as killed one of my family members however I would hope that I would remain compassionate for those that are lost.

1 Year WOW

2006-11-29T06:44:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a year since I have posted here on my blog and it is about time that I reconvene on posting. Many things have changed since I last posted here on my blog. So first I would like to catch everyone up.

1. Employment. I was the IT Director for an Investor Relations firm however, do to the inadequacy of the upper management to develop a culture that fosters innovation, I decided to make a move to a company that I have always wanted to work for. This company is one of the largest private software development companies in the US and has been around for over 30 years. They have always been ahead of the curve in technology and foster a culture that promotes innovation and free thinking. What is the company? Information Builders, Inc. www.informationbuilders.com

2. My wife and I experienced the birth of our 4th child (and first son) and additionally, we found out several weeks ago that my wife is pregnant with our 5th (and final) child.

3. I graduated last month with my Master's in Business Administration degree (MBA)

One might be asking at this point why did you leave your blog for so long and what made you come back?

Why I left - Life happened! I got a new job that required much time in training, travel, and etc. Additionally I was finishing my Master's degree.

Why I am back - I heard a study today of those that give to the less fortunate and the summary of results are as follows:

Republicans are more generous than democrats: Most democrats would explain this by saying of course, because they have more money but if you actually look at it from a percentage basis democrat's probably give more. WRONG! The study was done on a percentage basis of giving compared to income which brings me to the next point.
Republicans income that were the most generous were significantly less the the democrats that were less generous.

So here is my question to the democrats:

If democrats are suppose to be "for the poor, less fortunate, party for the people", why are you making more money than the republicans but giving less to the people you supposedly represent?

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty

2005-12-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Customer service can make or break your organization. People will pay a premium just to be treated extra-ordinary and they will continue to utilize your service for this treatment. At the end of the day, customers can always find another company willing to provide them with the products and services they are looking for, it is up to us to provide them with this extra-ordinary service to keep them using our products and services.

Disney, 1982

My family is originally from Aruba, and every year, our parents would take us to Disney World. Back then, my most favorite cartoon character had been Donald Duck, I always loved his feisty attitude. Before we left to go on this trip, I had set out to contact Donald Duck and tell him I was his biggest fan so I preceded to write a letter to hand him in the grand parade at Disney. Five days later, the time has come, I am sitting on the curb in the magical place called Disney World, watching my childhood fantasies dance before my eyes in the magical Disney parade, just waiting for Donald Duck to dance by so I can hand him my carefully crafted letter. Then across the street, there he his, the one and only Donald Duck. I yelled, "Donald" to no avail, he was not able to hear me. This was a crushing blow to a 6 year old, as I sat down with my head in my hands, then, out of no where, a loyal Disney employee that walks the parade with a broom and a dustpan, picking up garbage and such. He asked me what was the matter and I told him I had a special letter for Donald Duck, he told me to give it to him and he would make sure that he got it straight to Donald Duck.

One month past and I was back in Aruba, wondering if Donal Duck ever got my letter when my mother called me into the house, "Wayne, come in, you have mail!" So I went inside and was greeted with a large envelope that was addressed to "Mr. Wayne Johnson" coming from Orlando, FL, but not mentioning on the envelope, exactly who send it. I opened it and behold, it was a letter from Donald Duck, and an autograph picture.

AMAZING! An employee who took pride in the company he worked for, whose job was to walk through the park and pick up garbage, made a lifetime memory for a kid. And that kid is now using that example in training others on how to provide extra-ordinary customer service. That janator knew what it took, and Disney back then knew what kind of culture to create that type of commitment.

What can your company do to foster that type of environment?
Do you go the extra mile, performing tasks that might not neccesirally be "your job", simply to provide an extra-ordinary experience for your customers?

Costs that are difficult to quantify

2005-11-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

Today I had a good discussion with a fellow employee whom I was explaining the hidden costs in organizations that are extremely difficult to quantify. I call these costs "soft costs". Soft costs are costs that are difficult to put an amount on but that are real. Here is an example:

There are two divisions in a company, each division run by a different manager. Division A has 50 employees while division B has 100. Both departments utilize the human resource department which is a cost center to the company. The HR department handles all employee relations such as hiring, firing, handling complaints, etc. for all the departments in the company. One way to distribute the cost of the HR department is to equally distribute it among each employee, if the HR costs $150k to run and there are 150 employees, which would amount to $1,000 per employee. So division A would expense $50,000 toward HR and division B would expense $100,000 toward HR.

Here is where things become hard to quantify. The manager of division A has a high turn-over rate which requires HR to spend a considerable time in hiring new employees. HR has determined that they spend about 50% of the time on division A because of this. So division A actually has $75k of expense, they are not realizing the extra $25k expense and division B is expensing $25k too much. This fact makes us realize that division A is painting a picture that they are more profitable than they really are and division b is not getting credit for being even more profitable.

WHAT IS THE COST OF A BAD MANAGER? It is hard to quantify but definitely has long ranging implications.

FINAL THOUGH

Costs involve much more than raw materials, shipping, taxes, etc. Costs involve the actions of managers and the company, attitude in the organization. Managers need to take a deeper look at the cost of organizational behavior and its impact to the bottom line.

High Probability Selling

2005-10-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wished you only called on those people who were going to buy your product? Think about how effective you would be. To have outstanding sales you must first be able to identify the best audience. Your audience will fall into 4 categories:

Group #1 (Wayside) – They are no more ready to buy your product than fly to the moon. You already know their profile so don’t waste anytime here.

Group #2 (Stony) – This group acts interested but after you leave, they quickly lose interest. Their interest is shallow. You can recognize them on the first call because you were unable to find any real “pain” (revelation of their need). They may be nice people but will not come through with a commitment.

Group #3 (Thorny) – These prospects appear to be much more promising. They have evident needs, but are caught up in substitute solutions that drain their cash, time and energy, thereby preventing you from reaping any significant results with them.

Group #4 (Good) – This group of prospects are the ones who have genuine need, are willing to admit it, and are prepared to take action if and when a reasonable plan is offered to them.

While it is impossible to never call on someone who is in Group 1 through 3, only present your product solution to Group #4. Presenting to Groups 1 through 3 is being ineffective with your time.

To be even more effective, you can target your top twenty in Group #4. Experienced sales reps know it can take twice as long to make a thousand-dollar sale to a small sized customer than it does to make a twenty-thousand-dollar sale to a larger customer.

Exercise 1

1.1 Create a profile for each of your Groups that relate particularly to your industry.

1.2 Create a profile for the top 20 in Group #4.

1.3 Take a look at your most successful sales calls. What did they look like? What did they have in common? What was it about your product/service that they liked?

No Quotas

2005-08-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I am reading the Jack Welch book. Today I would like to discuss his performance evaluation strategy that he implemented at GE.

Everyone falls into one of three groups:

A People - These people are leaders, top performers, energetic, and can execute. These people make up 20% of your team.

B People - These people are very diligent and have great potential to be an "A" person. These people make up 70% of your team.

C People - These people are underperformers, do not have potential to be an "A" let alone a "B" person. These people make up 10% of your team.

Here is the falicy. The managers at GE are required to put 20% of their team in A, 70% of thier team in B and the bottom 10% of their team in C. The C people are let go. The problem here is that they are being compared to only their team. It is quite possible that someone rated a C on one team may very well be a B or even an A on another team. Besides that, if a team is full of A people, that is too bad, managers must select 10% of the team as C. What would your organization look like if 10% of your workforce is cut every year because of a quota that must be met?

I do agree with much of what he says but by putting a quota onto letting people go is never good for morale.

Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut

2005-08-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

I was in the dollar general store in my town shopping for some prank gifts for a family members' 30th birthday party and I saw Jack Welch's book there, I couldn't resist picking it up for only a buck. Today's topic will be based on what Jack calls his basic management beliefs, behind his beliefs (which are bolded) are my comments about that particular belief:

1. Competing hard to win. I believe in this statement, if we do not compete hard, we will not win and we chance everything to luck.

2. Facing reality. If we do not face reality we will slowly dig a grave for ourselves in using ignorance for our shovel.

3. Motivating people by alternately hugging and kicking them. WHAT, "kicking", while I understand what he means by kicking, I would hardly use that word to describe it, maybe pushing or stretching. I we are too aggressive we will "kick" them right out of the company.

4. Setting stretch goals. It is very important to set goals that are sitting just on the other side of "things I have never done" other wise you will find yourself standing on the shores of mediocrity.

5. Relentlessly following up on people to make sure things get done. This is ridiculous, all this means is micro managing. If I have to relentlessly follow up with people then I have the wrong people on my team.

At the end of the day, Jack Welch ran a successful organization at GE using the basic management beliefs stated above.

Predictable

2005-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have read many books and articles relating to leadership and have yet to see any one of them talk about this attribute. Predictable. A Leader needs to be predictable. Those who follow a leader need predictability. Why?

1. People need to know what your expectations are and you must act in a way that predict those expectations. If your expectations are to reach a certain objective and that objective has been met, you should predictably give praise for that accomplishment.

2. Predictability gives way to direction. When a leader is predictable, followers know what to expect and know where they are going. The unknown presents a very scary picture.

Without any predictability, your followers will constantly be questioning their performance, your view of their performance and your response to their performance. Those who have a bi-polar tendencies will be destroyed as a leader because of their inability to be predictable to their constituents. Think about it even in government, in this last election. No matter who you liked, one things for sure, President Bush is predictable, and in the end, that is what helped him win. People know what to expect. Unpredictability bring unknown expectations from the followers which is a good way to have no followers.

Reflection Point for Leadership

2005-06-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

As my previous post mentioned, I am reading the book, "The Leadership Challenge", the authors studies show the following characteristics to be CRUCIAL in being a leader, everyday I am being convinced more and more how true this is. These are top four crucial characteristics:

1. Honesty (Credibility)

2. Competent

3. Forward-Looking

4. Inspiring

Honesty Essential in Leadership

2005-06-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

I am reading a new book, recommended by a high level manager for Universal Studies, called The Leadership Challenge, by Kouzes and Posner. Just after reading the very first few pages, it really became very clear to me the importance of HONESTY in leadership, and I capitalize it because of how important it really is.

Other words that would also be considered in the HONESTY category are, integrity, ethical and moral. Wow, simple yet absent in very many aspiring leaders. If you are leading, you must actually have followers. The followers have to have a compelling reason to allow you to lead them. Sure there may be reasons like you are a successful innovator but without TRUST, they will not follow. Followers trust based on their leaders HONESTY. So leaders really need to reflect on several points;

1. Do you show your followers what you stand for (this not necessarily being religion but more like the ethical treatment of employees, how you perceive the importance of your employees, etc.).

2. Are your actions in line with your words? Do you walk your talk?

If not, beware, your leadership role is soon ending. Those who we lead require the basic need of TRUST, which comes from the demonstration of HONESTY.

5 Attributes to becoming a Successful Innovator

2005-06-17T04:56:00.000-07:00

1. Be comfortable with change

2. Be clearly directed

3. Be thorough

4. Be a participated manager

5. Be Persistant

Following these attibutes will help lead you to be a successful innovator.

Making Better Decision

2005-06-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am writing on this topic based upon reading in the latest edition of Harvard Management Review Publication. They interviewed author Paul Nutt, a management professor from Ohio State University. Looking back at the experience of both others and my own, and based on information in this article, here are some keys to making better decisions as to increase the odds of being successful.

First and foremost, everyone makes wrong decisions and the purpose of this article is not to tell you the secret of always making the right decision, there is no secret. These suggestions, however, will help you minimize the chance of making the wrong decision.

There is not one shortcut to success but millions that lead to disaster.

One of the biggest problems in making decisions is for the decision maker to try and make a quick decision, often as quickly as possible. If you put unrealistic time frame on decision making, you are limiting your options and increasing your odds for failure

Increase your Option

The more options you look at to make your decision, the more chances you have to make the right decision. Without examing an array of options, how can you be sure that you are not only making the right decision but also the best decision.

Motives in Motion

What is your motivation, are they self-centered, are they inline with what the goal of what the decision is trying to accomplish. This requires brutal honesty with one's self.

Ask and Listen to Stakeholders

This not only includes those who have a financial stake in the decision but also those who will be involved in the implementation of the decision. Remember, without the support of those who will implement the decision, it is doomed for failure.

So remember when you are making your next decision; take no shortcuts, increase your options, check you motives and listen to the stakeholders.

Passive, Aggressive, Assertive

2005-06-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

Last night in my Organizational Behavior class, we had an excersize and discussion on the importance of understanding what type of behavioral category you fall under, passive, aggressive or assertiveness. In all cases, everyone has characteristics of all three types of responses, however, the most effective response would be assertive.

After class I had a good conversation with my daughter because she asked me what we talked about in class. At this point I realized how important it is for parents to train their children in yet another area of socialization. Since my daughter is only 10, these concepts were a little difficult to relay to her so these were the definitions I used:

Passive - You let people walk all over you, you hardly ever stand up for yourself.

Aggressive - You are too confrontational with people, this ussually makes people think you are rude.

Assertive - You are able to stand up for your rights while not taking away someone else's rights. Being able to stand up for yourself tactfully while still remaining respectful of others.

Of course most of us know this, so this message serves as a reminder for you to spend some time in reflection of what actions do you exhibit most and how can you change them to better achieve your goals.