The months of December and January are usually full of reviews of significant events and achievements during the previous twelve months. Harvard Business Review makes the search for some of the best writing on the subject of data-driven transformation by occasionally publishing in one volume the best writing on a critical subject of interest to professional through the magazine OnPoint. It is worth making part of your permanent data management library.
(more…)business analytics
Rear View Mirror — Correcting a Project Management Fallacy
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
Over the years I and others have briefed project managers on project performance using KPPs, earned value management, schedule analysis, business analytics, and what we now call predictive analytics. Oftentimes, some set of figures will be critiqued as being ineffective or unhelpful; that the analytics “only look in the rear view mirror” and that they “tell me what I already know.”
(more…)Like Tinker to Evers to Chance: BI to BA to KDD
It’s spring training time in sunny Florida, as well as other areas of the country with mild weather and baseball. For those of you new to the allusion, it comes from a poem by Franklin Pierce Adams and is also known as “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon”. Tinker, Evers, and Chance were the double play combination of the 1910 Chicago Cubs (shortstop, second base, and first base). Because of their effectiveness on the field these Cubs players were worthy opponents of the old New York Giants, for whom Adams was a fan, and who were the kings of baseball during most of the first fifth of a century of the modern era (1901-1922). That is, until they were suddenly overtaken by their crosstown rivals, the Yankees, who came to dominate baseball for the next 40 years, beginning with the arrival of Babe Ruth.
(more…)The Future — Data Focus vs. “Tools” Focus
The title in this case is from the Leonard Cohen song.
Over the last few months I’ve come across this issue quite a bit and it goes to the heart of where software technology is leading us. The basic question that underlies this issue can be boiled down into the issue of whether software should be thought of as a set of “tools” or an overarching solution that can handle data in a way that the organization requires. It is a fundamental question because what we call Big Data–despite all of the hoopla–is really a relative term that changes with hardware, storage, and software scalability. What was Big Data in 1997 is not Big Data in 2016, and will not be Big Data in 2030.
(more…)Walk This Way — DoD IG Reviews DCMA Contracting Officer Business Systems Deficiencies
The sufficiency and effectiveness of business systems is an essential element in the project management ecosystem. Far beyond performance measurement of the actual effort, the sufficiency of the business systems to support the effort are essential in its success. If the systems in place do not properly track and record the transactions behind the work being performed, the credibility of the data is called into question. Furthermore, support and logistical systems, such as procurement, supply, and material management, contribute in a very real way, to work accomplishment. If that spare part isn’t in-house on time, the work stops.
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Life, Project Management, and Everything 