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Tag Archives: Business Enablement

Too much information

16 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Martyn Jones in 4th generation Data Warehousing, All Data, Ask Martyn, Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, business strategy, dark data, Data governance, Data Lake, data management, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, Good Strat, Good Strategy, goodstrat, IT strategy, Marty does, Martyn does, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, pig data, Strategy, The Amazing Big Data Challenge, The Big Data Contrarians

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Big Data, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, Data Warehouse, Good Strat, Information Technology, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Organisational Autism, Strategy

Martyn Richard Jones

I have questions about data.

Most of us who have more than a cursory knowledge of the English language have heard of the phrase ‘too much information’. We know what it means, even if we don’t always know when to apply it.

For those who don’t know, or are unsure, the Urban Dictionary describes ‘too much information’ as “An expression of exasperation and disgust when a person is divulging personal details of his sex life, toilet habits, or anything the listener finds disgusting, uninteresting, and unwelcome.”[1]

Sum, sum. Just because we know it, doesn’t mean we should share it or even try and remember it, never mind go about analysing the hell out of it.

This is where Big Data comes in. Continue reading →

Can you read? Be honest, now

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Martyn Jones in 4th generation Data Warehousing, Ask Martyn, business strategy, Good Strat, Good Strategy, goodstrat, Marty does, Martyn does, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Strategy

≈ 2 Comments

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Analytics, Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business strategy, Consider this, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Organisational Autism, Strategy

Martyn Richard Jones

When you have read this, if indeed you read it all, will I have failed to convey the essence of what I am trying to get at? Will a confusion of entropy win the battle? Will the wheel of fortune turn in my favour, or will I fail to connect and communicate effectively?

Let’s give it a spin and see what happens. Continue reading →

Main cause of IT project failure? – Big Data Informs…

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Analytics, Best principles, Business Intelligence, Executive, Extract, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Behavioural Economics, Big Data, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, Creativity, Data Warehouse, Organisational Autism

We analysed all the big data and discovered that the biggest reason for IT project failure is people – Big Data Informs…

We had failed at Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Core Competence, and quite a few other things, so some bright spark decided to give Big Data a shot.

The first task was to identify the reasons for IT project failure, globally.

According to the techies, Big Data was helping to move things on quite a bit, especially considering a previous attempt to analyse IT project ended tragically when the Data Warehouse coal-face caved in.

Before we gathered together all of the data in the Good Big Data project, we didn’t have a clue as to what was causing so many frequent, costly and dramatic failures.

We have an idea of where the biggest problems may be, but the Big Data team are afraid to pony up.

So, instead of boiling the ocean of data again, we decide to narrow the scope to Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence projects.

We were three months into this project and we’d still not achieved anything to brag about. So I put on my Project Manager’s hat and diplomatically engage up with the Big Data team.

“What the feck are you guys playing at?” I ask “You’ve had three months to come up with findings, and you have found nothing”

So, one by one, out come all the perfectly reasonable excuses and justifications.

“We didn’t know”, “this is very complicated”, “you don’t understand”, “I have the flu”. It all came out. We dance around the issues for a while, and then I set some tasks.

“I want you to find out what the prime motivators are for working on Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence projects”

“Is it for the cache of working on such projects?”

“Is it to bring real technical knowledge and experience to the party?”

“Is it to learn a technology, new product or technique?”

“Is it solely for the money?”

“Is it to ensure that the project lasts for as long as it can?”

“Is it to milk the budget for all its worth’”

“Is it to achieve the business objectives?”

“Is it to create inertia?”

“Is it to be on the inside, to ensure that the project fails?”

“Go and find out just what motivates people to work on these projects”

“Do it now and report back to me this time next week”.

So, I set and assign the tasks, clarify and address every current doubt, and leave.

Next week I go back. The team has a delegated spokesperson.

He says “we have addressed the questions you posed, and the answer is yes”

“Go on” I reply.

“It seems that to a greater of lesser extent, the questions you posed last week are all relevant”

“Fine, now tell me more”

“Well, there is not much to say, apart from the fact that what motivate many people isn’t exactly in the best interests of the projects in question”.

What am I listening to? No shit Sherlock!

“Can you expand on that?” I ask “Let’s open this up to everyone”.

So we have another three hours of discussion.

In the end what emerges is a classic set of metaphors and analogies that clearly identify why so many Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence projects go wrong, and indeed why this particular project cannot really deliver.

So, I wind things up.

“This is how I see it”

“3rd party suppliers and vendors want to see these projects last for as long as possible”

“The more licences, consulting days and bodies they can bill for, the better for them”

“The longer they take our money, and the more of it they take, the better it is for them”

“The more that innocent glitches, hiccups, procrastination and prevarication can be fabricated, forced and imposed, the longer everything takes, and the more that is billed for”

“So, better to over-promise, over-reach and under-deliver, than do things on time and to spec”

“What’s more, many people working on such projects will take the sides of the supplier, to the detriment of the client’s interests”

“Money is being leeched from healthy corporations to pay for bullshit death-march projects that deliver no value, bring no insight and can actually be a risk to corporate health”

“Projects are being financed by us, and used by others, as training”

“Corporations are being used as reference sites, even though the fundamental premise is nonsense”

“We are paying to teach people, bad-practice, worst-practice and no-practice”

“We are creating private armies of artful mediocrity, banality and imbecility”

“And we are proclaiming it as the way that business should be done in the future”

“Well, feck that! I don’t need big data to inform me that we are being taken for a ride”.

So, after ten days of contemplation, I formally close the project.

It had become a meta-example of what we were ostensibly investigating, analysing.and reporting on.

Yours strategically, Martyn

Nothing achievable is impossible: Challenges, Self-worth and Strategies

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Ask Martyn, Best principles, Creativity, Excellence, Methodology

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Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, Business Management, Information Technology, Strategy

I came into IT at the tail end of the seventies when I joined one of the original computing pioneers.

It was a conservative company lead by veterans, engineers, accountants and sales, with many ties to the US administration, the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies.

My interests at the time were in philosophy, politics and economics. I liked to meet people and talk, and also liked to help people solve real-life business problems, so I was always engaged with the corporate staff and executive management rather than with the real hard-core technicians and engineers.

The thing is, I had no idea what constrained IT, so I never had that baggage when thinking about solutions.

Continue reading →

Mugged in Data Hell – Summary – На Бо́га наде́йся, а сам не плоша́й

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Architecture, Best principles, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Peeves, Risk, Strategy

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, Data Warehouse, Demagogism, Dogma, Financial, IT Strategy, Offshoring, Organisational Autism, Outsourcing, Requirements management, Risk

I wrote a piece called Mugged in Data Hell.

It told the story of a CIO who was hoodwinked, cajoled, bullied, bribed and patronized into doing the wrong things, continuously.

As my mate Bill said, “It packs big punches, and doesn’t hold back with the shit-kicking truth”.

Continue reading →

Creativity – Three Stories

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Best principles, Creativity, Dogma, Knowledge, Management

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Behavioural Economics, Business, Business Enablement, Creativity, Dogma, Strategy

Here are three stories that illustrate the connection between creativity and what we do in business. Jacks’ Retail Story, talks about the expansion of retail business; Jill’s Colour Book Story highlights a hugely pervasive tendency, even in these times; and, Martyn’s Summer Story argues that there is a strategic time and place for some things.

Continue reading →

Early Learning and the Strategy Vision-Vision Thing

04 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Best principles, Excellence, Knowledge, Process

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Tags

Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, corporate assets, IT Strategy

Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence professionals need to think about how their vision will align with and support the corporate vision, but they also need to consider how the Data Warehouse vision aligns with addressing the challenges to the vision of the organisation, as well as taking into account the challenges to the vision of the Data Warehousing team, and also, challenges with any conceptual and informational structuring of the corporate vision, forces/challenges and strategy.

Continue reading →

Mugged in Data Hell – Perils of embracing the Faustian Side of IT – Part 4

04 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Analytics, Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Knowledge, Peeves

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, data integration, Demagogism, Dogma, enterprise data warehousing, Goal Setting, Information and Technology, information management, IT Strategy, MDM, Offshoring, Organisational Autism, Outsourcing, Strategy

Continued from Part 3 which can be found here -> Part 3


“The following week the full high-powered delegation from The Taffia Connection and BogartSys fly in. It was if an army had come to do battle with us. Uniformly slick, sullen and tacky. iPhone; laptop; knock-off Marks and Spark’s; check patterns; butt ugly ties; ‘plastique’ shoes; mismatching socks; ‘business’ rucksacks; all weather hoodies; and, worst of all, off-the-peg smirks just begging to be slapped”.

Continue reading →

Mugged in Data Hell – Perils of embracing the Faustian Side of IT – Part 3

03 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Process

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Behavioural Economics, BI, Big Data, Business, Business Enablement, Business Management, Demagogism, Dogma, enterprise data warehousing, Information Technology, IT Strategy, MDM, Offshoring, Organisational Autism, Outsourcing

Continued from Part 2 which can be found here -> Part 2

I look over at Crème, who is now staring out the window watching the rain. I cough, theatrically, for effect. “So, Crème, would you like a rest, or do you want to tell us about what happened next?”

“Oh, yes” Crème says, “Sorry, I was wandering there for a while”. She continues.

Continue reading →

On your way to Data Warehouse success? We’ll put a stop to that!

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Martyn Jones in Architecture, Best principles, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Excellence, Inmon, Peeves

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Tags

Behavioural Economics, BI, business analysis, Business Enablement, Business Management, data integration, enterprise data warehousing

One of the most soul destroying moments in the life of a data warehouse professional is when a key decision maker (usually backed by other key decision makers) decides to radically alter course, and “in a dance as old as time”, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

This can happen in various ways, but the most gut wrenching of all is this.

Continue reading →

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