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| Business Intelligence Series |
The monitoring of business issues is sometimes compared metaphorically with piloting an airplane, where pilots look at the cockpit instruments to verify whether everything is under control and the flight ensues according to the expectations. The use of a cockpit is supported by the fact that an airplane is an almost "closed" system in which the components were developed under strict requirements and tested thoroughly under specific technical conditions. Many instruments were engineered and evolved over decades to operate as such. The processes are standardized, inputs and outputs are under strict control, otherwise the whole edifice would crumble under its own complexity.
In organizational setups, a similar approach is attempted for monitoring the most important aspects of a business. A few dashboards and reports are thus built to monitor and control what’s happening in the areas which were identified as critical for the organization. The various gauges and other visuals were designed to provide similar perspectives as the ones provided by an airplane’s cockpit. At first sight the cockpit metaphor makes sense, though at careful analysis, there are major differences.
Probably, the main difference is that businesses don’t necessarily have standardized processes that were brought under control (and thus have variation). Secondly, the data used doesn’t necessarily have the needed quality and occasionally isn’t fit for use in the business processes, including supporting processes like reporting or decision making. Thirdly, are high the chances that the monitoring within the BI infrastructures doesn’t address the critical aspects of the business, at least not at the needed level of focus, detail or frequency. The interplay between these three main aspects can lead to complex issues and a muddy ground for a business to build a stable edifice upon.
The comparison with airplanes’ cockpit was chosen because the number of instruments available for monitoring is somewhat comparable with the number of visuals existing in an organization. In contrast, autos have a smaller number of controls simple enough to help the one(s) sitting in the cockpit. A car’s monitoring capabilities can probably reflect the needs of single departments or teams, though each unit needs its own gauges with specific business focus. The parallel is however limited because the areas of focus in organizations can change and shift in other directions, some topics may have a periodic character while others can regain momentum after a long time.
There are further important aspects. At high level, the expectation is for software products and processes, including the ones related to BI topics, to have the same stability and quality as the mass production of automobiles, airplanes or other artifacts that have similar complexity and manufacturing characteristics. Even if the design process of software and manufacturing may share many characteristics, the similar aspects diverge as soon as the production processes start, respectively progress, and these are the areas where the most differences lie. Starting from the requirements and ending with the overall goals, everything resembles the characteristics of quick shifting sands on which is challenging to build any stabile edifice.
At micro level in manufacturing each piece was carefully designed and produced according to a set of characteristics that were proved to work. Everything must fit perfectly in the grand design and there are many tests and steps to make sure that happens. To some degree the same is attempted when building software products, though the processes break along the way with the many changes attempted, with the many cost, time and quality constraints. At some point the overall complexity kicks back; it might be still manageable though the overall effort is higher than what organizations bargained for.
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