29 March 2016

Strategic Management: Decision-Making (Definitions)

[decision-making:] "The process of making choices in a project team environment. Several types of decision-making are useful in projects: consensus, leader-imposed, delegated, voting, and scoring models." (Timothy J  Kloppenborg et al, "Project Leadership", 2003)

[semistructured decisions:] "Decisions in which only some of the phases are structured; require a combination of standard solution procedures and individual judgment." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

[strategic decision:] "refers to a decision that exhibits the following characteristics: it is made in a situation of uncertainty, of incomplete information, in a complex environment, variable/mutating environment (as opposed to 'all things being otherwise equal'); it is not recurrent, therefore the decision maker is relatively deprived; it may have far-reaching (favorable or adverse) consequences that could jeopardize the survivability of the enterprise; it is systemic (many elements with many relationships among them); the decision maker does not have experience-proven models (we cannot resort to 'turnkey' mechanisms). " (Humbert Lesca & Nicolas Lesca, "Weak Signals for Strategic Intelligence: Anticipation Tool for Managers", 2011)

[strategic decisions:] "Decisions for sustained enterprise success and business growth." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

[tactical decisions:] "Decisions ensuring that existing operations and processes are in alignment with business objectives and strategies." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

[decision-making processes:] "Management processes that define objectives, study alternatives, analyze available data, and reflect on intuitive beliefs. They interpret findings and compare alternates to form a conclusion or make a choice upon which the organization may act." (Carl F Lehmann, "Strategy and Business Process Management", 2012)

[microdecision:] "A small decision made many times by many workers at the front line of the organization. They usually have a significant impact on organizational performance due to their sheer volume." (Evan Stubbs, "Delivering Business Analytics: Practical Guidelines for Best Practice", 2013)

[decision-making:] "How decisions are made, based on what types of resources, information, and specific processes are available." (Jim Davis & Aiman Zeid, "Business Transformation: A Roadmap for Maximizing Organizational Insights", 2014)

[decision-making] "the process of making choices or reaching conclusions, especially on important political or business matters." (Ken Sylvester, "Negotiating in the Leadership Zone", 2015)

[tactical decisions:] "broader decision questions than operational ­decisions, semistructured in nature, some but not all information ­necessary to make the decision is available, primarily internally focused and made by middle-level managers." (Daniel J. Power & Ciara Heavin, "Data-Based Decision Making and Digital Transformation", 2018)

[operating or function-specific decisions:] "day-to-day, routine ­decisions with a concise decision question and a clear, well-defined, and structured algorithm to make a choice among alternatives." (Daniel J. Power & Ciara Heavin, "Data-Based Decision Making and Digital Transformation", 2018)

[strategic decisions:] "complex, nonroutine, unstructured decisions involving many different and connected parts. Some variables may not be well understood, often information required to make the decision may be unavailable, incomplete, and in some situations information may be known to be flawed or inaccurate. These decisions usually involve a high degree of uncertainty about outcomes. If implemented, strategic ­decisions often result in major changes in an organization." (Daniel J. Power & Ciara Heavin, "Data-Based Decision Making and Digital Transformation", 2018)

25 March 2016

Strategic Management: Business Continuity Plan (Definitions)

"A plan for ensuring that businesses will be able to recover from the effects of a destructive incident and continue to operate at an acceptable level." (C Warren Axelrod, "Responsibilities and Liabilities with Respect to Catastrophes", 2009)

"An emergency contingency plan that spells out how to recover and restore functions that have been partially or completely interrupted." (Annetta Cortez & Bob Yehling, "The Complete Idiot's Guide® To Risk Management", 2010)

"The advance planning and preparations which are necessary to identify the impact of potential losses, formulate and implement viable recovery strategies, develop recovery plan(s) which ensure continuity of organizational services in the event of an emergency or disaster, and administer a comprehensive training, testing, and maintenance program." (Mark S Merkow & Lakshmikanth Raghavan, "Secure and Resilient Software Development", 2010)

"Plan that outlines the process by which businesses should recover from a major disaster. Also known as a disaster recovery plan." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"A methodology used to create a plan for how an organization will resume partially or completely interrupted critical function(s) within a predetermined time after a disaster or disruption. BCP differentiates from disaster recovery in that DR is primarily associated with resources and facilities, while BCP is associated primarily with processes." (Bill Holtsnider & Brian D Jaffe, "IT Manager's Handbook" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Overall planning lifecycle dedicated to analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance of various elements designed to keep the organization operating even after a significant outage. Business continuity planning is a continuous process." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"This refers to the documented procedures and information that enable the organization and or business unit/third party agent to respond to a disruption, recover, and resume critical business functions." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"A business continuity action plan is a document or set of documents that contains the critical information a business needs to stay running in spite of adverse events. A business continuity plan is also called an emergency plan." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP" CBK 4th Ed., 2015)

"Plans that document the steps to restore business operation after an interruption. BCPs, along with DRPs, enable you to recover from disruptions ranging from small to large." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"Documented procedures that guide organizations to respond, recover, resume, and restore to a predefined level of operation following disruption." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"Business continuity plans are made up of documented procedures. Organizations use these procedures to respond to disruptive incidents, to guide recovery efforts, to resume prioritized activities, and to restore operations to acceptable predefined levels. Business continuity plans usually identify the services, activities, and resources needed to ensure that prioritized business activities and functions could continue whenever disruptions occur." (ISO 22301:2012, 2012).

"Plan defining the steps required to restore business processes following a disruption" (ITIL)

"The documentation of a predetermined set of instructions or procedures that describe how an organization’s mission/business processes will be sustained during and after a significant disruption." (CNSSI 4009-2015) 

Strategic Management: Assurance (Definitions)

"All the systematic actions necessary to have the confidence that the target (process, program, project, outcome, benefit, capability, product output, deliverable) is appropriate. Assurance must be independent from what is being assured." (Paul C Dinsmore et al, "Enterprise Project Governance", 2012)

"An objective examination of evidence for the purpose of providing an independent assessment on governance, risk management, and control processes for the organization. Examples may include performance, compliance, system security, and due diligence engagements." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"A level of confidence that appropriate and effective IT controls are in place." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"A measurement of confidence in the level of protection that a specific security control delivers and the degree to which it enforces the security policy." (Shon Harris & Fernando Maymi, "CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide" 8th Ed., 2018)

"Confidence that a system exhibits a stated set of properties." (O Sami Saydjari, "Engineering Trustworthy Systems: Get Cybersecurity Design Right the First Time", 2018)

"Grounds for confidence that the other four security goals (integrity, availability, confidentiality, and accountability) have been adequately met by a specific implementation. 'Adequately met' includes (1) functionality that performs correctly, (2) sufficient protection against unintentional errors (by users or software), and (3) sufficient resistance to intentional penetration or by-pass." (NIST SP 800-12 Rev. 1)

"Measure of confidence that the security features, practices, procedures, and architecture of an information system accurately mediates and enforces the security policy." (NIST SP 800-39)

"The grounds for confidence that the set of intended security controls in an information system are effective in their application." (NIST SP 800-27 Rev A)

Strategic Management: Assessment (Definitions)

"Evaluation of an an organization’s process performance capability against a model (e.g., Automotive SPICE PAM). The goal is the rating and improvement of processes (process capability)." (Lars Dittmann et al, "Automotive SPICE in Practice", 2008)

"(1) The comparison of the actual environment and data to requirements and expectations. (2) The first high-level step in the Information and Data Quality Improvement Cycle." (Danette McGilvray, "Executing Data Quality Projects", 2008)

"An appraisal that an organization does internally for the purposes of process improvement. The word assessment is also used in the People CMM in an everyday English sense (e.g., performance assessment)." (Sally A Miller et al, "People CMM: A Framework for Human Capital Management" 2nd Ed., 2009)

"A judgment about the implications of an influencer on either one or more means (such as particular courses of action) or one or more ends, such as particular desired results." (David C Hay, "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map", 2010)

"Activity of determination of quantitative or qualitative value of a product, service, activity, process in regard to given quality or acceptance criteria." (IQBBA, "Standard glossary of terms used in Software Engineering", 2011)

"Assessment is the process of evaluating or estimating the nature, ability, or quality of a thing. As a synonym for measurement, assessment implies the need to compare one thing to another in order to understand it. Assessment implies drawing a conclusion - evaluating - the object of the assessment (NOAD) whereas measurement does not always imply so." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

"Evaluation of an organization's successful execution of processes and standards. For OPM3, various tools to assess organizational project management maturity exist in the marketplace with variations of granularity." (Project Management Institute, "Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)" 3rd Ed., 2013)

"The outcome of an evaluation of a process or event. Example: a scored exam constitutes an assessment of learning." (Gregory Lampshire, "The Data and Analytics Playbook", 2016)

"A systematic evaluation process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the current, historical or projected compliance of an organization to a standard." (ASQ).

"inspection and analysis to check whether a standard or set of guidelines are being followed, that records are accurate, or that efficiency and effectiveness targets are being met" (ITIL)

07 March 2016

Strategic Management: Risk Analysis (Definitions)

 "The evaluation, classification, and prioritization of risks." (Sandy Shrum et al, "CMMI®: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement", 2003)

"The process of identifying, characterizing, and prioritizing risks." (Richard D Stutzke, "Estimating Software-Intensive Systems: Projects, Products, and Processes", 2005)

"The process of assessing identified risks to estimate their impact and probability of occurrence (likelihood)." (Tilo Linz et al, "Software Testing Practice: Test Management", 2007)

"The process of measuring and analyzing the risks associated with financial and investment decisions. Risk refers to the variability of expected returns (earnings or cash flows)." (Jae K Shim & Joel G Siegel, "Budgeting Basics and Beyond", 2008)

"A formal definition of risks based on asset identification, threat enumeration, and consequence evaluation." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"Systematic use of available information to determine how often specified events may occur and the magnitude of their likely consequences." (Chartered Institute of Building, "Code of Practice for Project Management for Construction and Development" 5th Ed., 2014)

"The process to comprehend the nature of risk and to determine the level of risk [3]" (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"This is the part where we combine the impact and the likelihood (or probability) to calculate the level of risk and to plot it onto a risk matrix, which allows us to compare risks for their severity and to decide which are in greatest need of treatment." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"Determining the nature and likelihood of the risks to key data" (Nell Dale & John Lewis, "Computer Science Illuminated" 6th Ed., 2015)

"A process undertaken to comprehend the nature of risk and to determine the level of risk." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"The process of assessing identified risks to estimate their impact and probability of occurrence (likelihood)." (IQBBA)

"The process to comprehend the nature of risk and to determine the level of risk" (ISO Guide 73:2009)

04 March 2016

Strategic Management: Risk Matrix (Definitions)

"A graph that compares the likelihood and severity of risks from highest to lowest." (Annetta Cortez & Bob Yehling, "The Complete Idiot's Guide® To Risk Management", 2010)

"A common way to determine whether a risk is considered low, moderate, or high by combining the two dimensions of a risk: its probability of occurrence and its impact on objectives if it occurs." (Cynthia Stackpole, "PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummies", 2011)

"A grid for mapping the probability of each risk occurrence and its impact on project objectives if that risk occurs. " (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"A graphical representation of impact versus likelihood used to assist in the prioritisation of risks" (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

[impact matrix:] "A method for assigning values to expected pressures from the macro-environment in order for an organisation to assess the future nature of its context for which it must design an effective strategy." (Duncan Angwin & Stephen Cummings, "The Strategy Pathfinder" 3rd Ed., 2017)

02 March 2016

Business Intelligence: Self-Service BI (An Introduction)

Business Intelligence

Introduction


According to Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, Self-Service BI (aka self-service analytics, ad-hoc analysis, personal analytics), for short SSBI, is a “form of business intelligence (BI) in which line-of-business professionals are enabled and encouraged to perform queries and generate reports on their own, with nominal IT support” [1].

Reading between the lines, SSBI presumes the existence of an infrastructure made of tools to support it (aka self-service BI tools), direct or indirect access to row data and/or data models for the users, and the skillset needed in order to work with data and answer to business problems/questions.

A Little History

The concept of self-service is not new, it just got “rebranded” and transformed into a business opportunity. The need for business users to perform ad-hoc analyses was always there in organizations, especially in the ones not having the right infrastructure for harnessing their data. Even since the 90s with the appearance of products like MS Excel or MS Access in many organizations users were forced by the state of art to learn how to use such products in order to get the answers they needed from the data. Users started building personal solutions, many of them temporary, intended to fill the reporting gaps organizations had. With a little effort and relatively small investment users had the possibility of playing with the data, understanding the data, identifying and solving problems in the business. They acquired thus a certain level of business expertise and data awareness becoming valuable resources in the organization.

With time such solutions grew in scope and data volume, gained broader visibility and reached deeper in organizations, some of them becoming team, departmental or cross-departmental solutions. What grows uncontrolled with time starts to have negative impact on the environment. First tools’ management became a problem because the solutions needed to be backed-up and maintained regularly, then other problems started to surface: security of data, inefficient data processing as increasing volumes of data were processed on local computers and transferred over the network, data and effort were duplicated, different versions of reality existed as different numbers were reported, numbers that were reflecting different definitions, knowledge about the business or data-analysis skillsets. The management needed a more consolidated and standardized effort in order to address these problems. Organizations were forced or embraced the idea of investing money in modern BI solutions, in more powerful servers capable of handling a larger amount of requests, in flexible data models that facilitate data consumption, in data quality initiatives. Thus through various projects a considerable number of such solutions were converted into more standardized and performant BI solutions, the IT department being in control of the changes and new requests.

Back to Present

With IT in control of the reporting requirements the business is forced to rely on the rapidity with which IT is able to address new requirements. Some organizations acquired internal resources in order to build reports and afferent infrastructure in-house, others created partnerships with vendors, or approached a combination of the two. As the volume of requirements isn’t uniform over time, the business has to wait several days between the time a requirement was addressed to IT and a solution was provided. In business terms a few of days of waiting for data can equate with the loss of an opportunity, a decision taken too late, decision that could have broader impact.

A few years ago things started to change when the ad-hoc analysis concept was rebranded as self-service and surfaced as trend. This time vendors like Qlik, Tableau, MicroStrategy or Microsoft, some of the main SSBI vendors, are offering easy to use and rich functionality tools for data integration, visualization and discovery, tools that reflect the advances made in graphics, data storage and processing technologies (e.g. in-memory databases, parallel processing). With just a few drag-and-drops users are able to display details, aggregate data, identify trends and correlations between data. In addition the tools can make use of the existing data models available in data warehouses, data marts and other types of data repositories, including the rich set of open data available on the web.

Looking at the Future

Like its predecessors, SSBI seems to address primarily data analysts and data-aware business users (aka data citizens), however in time is expected to be adopted by more organizations and become more mature where already adopted. Of course, some of the problems from the early days more likely will resurface though through governance, better architectures and tools, integration with other BI capabilities, trainings and awareness most of the problems will be overcome. More likely there will be also organizations in which SSBI will fail. In the end each organization will need to find by itself the value of SSBI.

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Resources:
[1] Gartner (2016) Self-Service Analytics [Online] Available from: http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/self-service-analytics
[2
] Gartner (2016) Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, by Josh Parenteau, Rita L. Sallam, Cindi Howson, Joao Tapadinhas, Kurt Schlegel, Thomas W. Oestreich [Online] Available from: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2XXET8P&ct=160204&st=sb

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IT Professional with more than 24 years experience in IT in the area of full life-cycle of Web/Desktop/Database Applications Development, Software Engineering, Consultancy, Data Management, Data Quality, Data Migrations, Reporting, ERP implementations & support, Team/Project/IT Management, etc.