Greetings from the JW Marriott hotel in Orlando. The IBM Vision 2012 conference for Finance and Risk Management professionals is going really well. Close to 800 professionals from all over the world are here. The atmosphere has been great so far. An event of this size allows people to easily connect with each other and to exchange a few ideas.

Keynotes

The keynotes of the events have been well received. They were action and information packed. The Tuesday morning presentations were especially insightful. Les Rechan kicked off the day with a few thoughts about the role of analytics in the office of finance. He was followed by book author Michael Mauboussin who talked about the power of counterintuition in decision making. John Hagerty from Gartner closed out the morning session with a few customer interviews.

Make sure to watch or scan through the video recording.

Stay tuned for further updates

IBM Vision 2012 – A great conference, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Greetings from Orlando. I left Munich Saturday morning to attend the IBM Vision 2012 conference. This three day event for finance & risk management professionals will be exciting. There are fantastic keynotes lined up as well as a ton of awesome break-out sessions. I am really looking forward to it.

Keynotes

The keynotes at IBM Vision 2012 promise to be especially interesting this year. The list of external speakers includes John Hagerty from Gartner, book author Michael Mauboussin and Everest explorer Alison Levine. Of course, there are also exciting IBM speakers including Les Rechan (GM for Business Analytics) and Mark Loughridge (CFO of IBM). I will be showing some great new solutions as part of the general keynote Tuesday morning from 11am – 12am EST.

Join the conversation

For those of you who will attend IBM Vision 2012, please do reach out to me (@cpapenfuss). I would love to connect. If you cannot attend the conference, you can still participate in the conversations. There are two main options:

• Join via Twitter. The official hashtag is #vision12 . Also, make sure to follow @ibmcognos for updates. I will try to tweet whenever possible.
• View the keynote sessions from your desk via Livestream. All keynote sessions will be broadcast and should be available for viewing after the event as well.

Stay tuned for updates!

IBM Vision 2012, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Christoph Papenfuss: IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 was released in February of 2012. What is so special about this release?

Karsten Oehler: One of the central components of version 10.1 is a new modeling environment. It is called Performance Modeler. It really encourages finance and business professionals to develop their own models. Performance Modeler allows them to develop complex rules and links. You can also easily import data into applications. None of this requires deep technical knowledge.

Christoph Papenfuss: Does Performance Modeler replace Architect?

Karsten Oehler: Performance Modeler is an enhancement. The user can choose which tool to use. Architect is closer to Excel and has some features which are currently not supported by Performance Modeler. This includes dynamic subsets and report generation of Excel sheets from the cube viewer.

Christoph Papenfuss: There is a new desktop tool call Cognos Insight. It looks similar to TM1. Is there a relationship or connection between the products.

Karsten Oehler: Cognos Insight is a very powerful desktop tool that allows business people to conduct analysis, explore data and to develop prototypes. TM1 and Cognos Insight are closely connected – a local TM1 engine is part of Cognos Insight. It uses the same rule syntax and a simplified Turbo-Integrator version for data import. You can also import Cognos Insight models into Performance Modeler and refine them further.

Christoph Papenfuss: What is the advantage of using Cognos Insight in the planning process along with TM1

Karsten Oehler: There are two aspects: Planning applications are often created by prototyping. Cognos Insight is a great tool to express ideas and to develop prototypes. Secondly Cognos Insight can be used an additional front-end for contributors to the planning, budgeting and forecasting process.

The TM1 book was the big star at the Budapest Finance Forum on May 9th

Christoph Papenfuss: Who should use Cognos Insight as a client for planning and forecasting models?

Karsten Oehler: TM1 has strong tools to support a highly decentralized planning and forecasting process. I recommend to use the IBM Cognos Contributor front-end because it is easy to distribute (non-local installation). With TM1 10.1 you can also integrate web sheets created via the Excel add in. However if somebody is using Insight for data discovery it is very interesting to contribute to the planning process directly within Cognos Insight. Another advantage is the scalability: With Insight it is possible to let the local insight engine do all the calculation which is needed for the planning slice assigned to the user.

Christoph Papenfuss: What do you like best about TM1?

Karsten Oehler: It is definitely the rule language. It is the most compact way to formulate all kinds of calculations to solve all kinds of business problems. The most complex cost and profitability calculations often look pretty easy after modeling them with TM1 rules.

Christoph Papenfuss: Thank you so much, Karsten!

You can purchase the TM1 book on Amazon.com: IBM Cognos TM1 – The Official Guide

About Dr. Karsten Oehler (author of the TM1 book):

Karsten is head of the Performance Management Client Technical Professionals at IBM Germany. Prior to joining IBM, he spent more than 15 years with several international software companies as a product manager, marketing executive, and consultant for financial accounting and business intelligence software. He has published several books and well over 130 articles about business analytics.

Part 2 – Interview with the TM1 book author. More about TM1, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

It was a regular workday for Tom. Things were going well for him and his career. Shortly after 5pm his boss called to ask him for a simple favor: to deliver one of their standard corporate presentations in front of 30 sales and marketing people from a different business unit the next day at 1pm. Most people dread presenting and so did Tom. He cancelled his get-together for the evening and didn’t go to bed until after midnight. He tossed and turned in anticipation of the next day. At 4am he finally gave up, showered and continued with his preparation. His public speaking nervousness continued to rise throughout the morning. His girl-friend tried to re-assure him. He knew the subject extremely well, after all. Shortly after 1pm, disaster struck. He had just started the presentation when he had a complete black-out. 29 people stared at him with anticipation. He couldn’t find his words, the world started spinning around him and he passed out.

This view is supposedly scarier for many people than looking into the face of a snake.

The stage fright phenomenon

What happened to Tom isn’t unusual. It happens all the time. Most people hate presenting in front of a group of any size. But it doesn’t have to end in disaster. And it shouldn’t! Presentation skills are extremely important today. We are required to present more often that we think: team meetings, town halls, conferences… There are a lot of opportunities to shine but also to mess things up.

It is a well-known secret that even famous actors, performers and singers deal with the phenomenon of stage fright. There is no way around it. But it doesn’t have to be a horror experience. Instead, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences professional live offers.

“The fact is, people do judge by appearances. If you have great ideas but present them poorly, many people will fail to see their worth. You’ll be beaten by somebody whose ideas are less worthy than yours, but who presented them superlatively.”, Simon Reynolds.

Advice for public speaking nervousness

For the past four years, I have frequently presented to larger audiences of up to a few thousand people. Those occasions have taught me a lot. But let me tell you: regardless of how often I do this – I am usually nervous. Here are a few things that have helped me stay calm and relaxed. Many websites and books will tell you about breathing techniques and such. That sort of stuff puts a band-aid on a deep cut. I doesn’t help you heal.

1. Nervousness = Ability to perform: Being nervous helps us perform extremely well. The reason is that our brains release adrenaline which in turn allows us to focus and to perform.  Just think back to a time when you achieved something amazing (maybe a test, race, tournament). Chances are you were super nervous but suddenly your adrenaline kicked in. So the first thing to do is to just accept the fact that you will feel those butterflies in your stomach. Knowing that this is part of deal and that this helps me has made a world of difference.
2. Prepare: Preparation is key. For one thing, you should know your content well. If you do not know what you are talking about, you have every right to be nervous and maybe you shouldn’t even present to begin with. But preparation also requires you to have the equipment ready and primed. I always make sure to charge my laptop and iPad before any presentation. Also, I try to show up at a location early enough to test everything. It sounds so simple, but I have seen many people who get frazzled by beeping laptops, connectivity issues and such. So, do yourself a favor and prepare well.
3. Content: Invest time in developing your content. Simply downloading any cool presentation from the corporate knowledge center will not help. Every audience is different. If you invest time in understanding their needs and tailoring the content will help you tremendously. I have had several occasions where I developed presentations that I was really excited to deliver. The content was that cool. If you are happy and familiar with the content, you will be in a much better place.
4. Mingle: We are usually most comfortable with friends and family. Crowds of people that we do not know are scary on the other hand. I therefore try to mingle with people before a presentation. It allows me to get to know them, learn about their expectations and to also get some distraction.
5. Humor: Humor is the best medicine. I personally love to joke around before speaking engagements. It helps me clear my mind and it helps with getting into a positive attitude. And that attitude is extremely important.
6. Hidden agenda: Part of the reason we experience public speaking nervousness is the fear of making mistakes. But guess what – as the presenter, we have a serious competitive advantage: Nobody besides you knows what is supposed to happen. Let’s assume that you were planning on saying X before saying Y, but you end up starting with Y and then finishing with X. The audience won’t notice and they won’t care. You are the only one who knows! And even if you make a mistake, so what? Stuff happens and nobody expects you to be perfect. So, use that knowledge to your advantage: Only you know what is supposed to happen. That insight alone can really calm you down.

Public speaking nervousness

6 tips for combating public speaking nervousness, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

The highly anticipated 10.1 version of IBM Cognos TM1 was released in February 2012. Along with the software there is also a great new TM1 book: IBM Cognos TM1 – The Official Guide. My German colleague Karsten Oehler is one of the authors of this comprehensive TM1 book. We had the opportunity to catch up last week. It was very early in the morning and we were both on our first cup of coffee. This is the first part of two short interviews. Check back Tuesday next week to read more.

Christoph Papenfuss: Let’s start this discussion with an important question. TM1 is a strange product name. What does TM1 stand for?

Karsten Oehler: The name sounds still fresh and interesting after 25 years, right? Oh well…..it is an interesting name, indeed. And we do get a lot of questions about it. Here is the truth. Don’t be shocked – it stands for Table Manager 1. And it is the solution No 1 from my point of view.

Christoph Papenfuss: What is TM1? Can you describe it in an elevator-speech style?

Karsten Oehler: Cognos TM1 is the universal tool for the business person wanting to do all kinds of analytical work like forecasting, planning, simulation, analysis and reporting. Some people call it the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ for the business. The only thing it can’t do (yet) is to cook coffee

Christoph Papenfuss: Who can use IBM Cognos TM1 and why should they?

Karsten Oehler: Everybody with a need or desire to perform analytical work should use TM1. TM1 links typical analytical office work (Excel) with a high performing analytical database. However it doesn’t require that much conceptual overhead so that a business user is able to define his own data structure. TM1 doesn’t replace spreadsheets or data warehouses. It literally brings both worlds together.

Christoph Papenfuss: There are many planning, budgeting and forecasting solutions out on the market. What makes IBM Cognos TM1 so special?

Karsten Oehler: I am heading up a research group at the Controller Verein, the biggest European community for management accountants and finance experts. We describe several classes of planning tools: spreadsheet enhancements, ERP enhancements, OLAP, specific (financial) planning solutions and generic planning solutions. The last category is the most powerful one because it provides a lot of flexibility while also allowing you to leverage strong predefined planning functions like workflow, simulation, financial intelligence. Within this group TM1 is the best one because it has the most modern architect (scalability, write back queuing, rule optimization, batch processing environment) and the newest interface.

Christoph Papenfuss: Is TM1 just for planning, budgeting and forecasting?

Karsten Oehler: Absolutely not! As I mentioned before, TM1 is extremely powerful and flexible. Planning, budgeting and forecasting is just one area where TM1 can add tremendous value. Other important areas where TM1 excels at is profitability and sales analysis, costing (an area where TM1 is extremely strong), management consolidation, and last but not least production planning.

Christoph Papenfuss: You have just released the book IBM Cognos TM1 – The Official Guide. What prompted you to write this book?

Karsten Oehler: When you look at the bookstores and see shelves of SAP books and hardly any book about the best analytical tool, you have to scratch your head. We wanted to change that. Also, together with our customers we had developed a lot of valuable business content over the past decade. We really wanted to share this with others.

Christoph Papenfuss: What can you expect to learn from the book?

Karsten Oehler: How to live a better life – just kidding. No, in all seriousness it should help you with your daily TM1 work. It explains the architecture in a focused and structured way. This is an area where the standard documentation is sometimes a bit too extensive. Also, we have included a ton of business content. There are several small models that explain how TM1 can solve specific business problems like rolling forecasting, inter-company matching, variance analysis, activity based management etc..

Christoph Papenfuss: Who should read the book?

Karsten Oehler: Anybody who has an interest in TM1! Early feedback shows that power users and business consultants are the primary readers of this book.

Christoph Papenfuss: What is the best way to read your TM1 book? Is it more like a workbook or a resource guide that you pull out when you need it?

Karsten Oehler: Of course you could read the entire book, but I wouldn’t recommend that. It’s 800 pages strong! I would rather suggest to focus on just those business areas that you are interested in. Simply read it section by section. I would imagine that most people will use the book as a powerful reference.

Christoph Papenfuss: IBM recently released TM 10.1 . Do you cover the latest version in your book?

Karsten Oehler: We certainly cover it but it was not easy because there were a lot of short term changes in the development process. The business models are backward compatible. We wanted to make sure that users from the older releases are also able to leverage the book.

To be continued next Thursday…..the second part will focus on the 10.1 release.

About Dr. Karsten Oehler (author of the TM1 book):

Karsten is head of the Performance Management Client Technical Professionals at IBM Germany. Prior to joining IBM, he spent more than 15 years with several international software companies as a product manager, marketing executive, and consultant for financial accounting and business intelligence software. He has published several books and well over 130 articles about business analytics.

Interview with the TM1 book author: IBM Cognos TM1 – The Official Guide (Part 1), The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Today is May 1st. Most European countries are off work to remember labor day. May 1st is indeed a historical date. In 1886, workers in Chicago and other cities laid down their work to demand better working conditions including eight hour working days. The situation escalated over the next few days and several people died. The event is remembered as the Haymarket Riots. Since then working conditions have improved considerably. However, despite the standard eight hour working days, many of us are often forced to work more than that. There is just too much stuff. But longer hours do not necessarily increase quality. It is therefore important that we take time to figure out ways to work smarter.

Productivity increase

Last summer a friend shared a very simple but effective productivity technique. Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad supposedly came up with the idea for it. The technique is super simple: Divide your work in 10-minute increments. Let’s say you to book travel for an upcoming business trip. It’s easy to waste a lot of time on researching hotels and prices. But give yourself ten minutes to get the task done. Guess what happens: You will do your best to get everything done within that time limit. Your productivity increases while you spent less time on unimportant things.

It's critical to work smarter in a frantic world

The power of ten

The ten minute idea works really well for me when I need to get stuff done that I am either not good at or that I really dislike. In the past I have found that I tend to either procrastinate those tasks or that I get side-tracked while doing them. But allocating a ten minute budget really helps me get started. The task looks less daunting and I make every effort to get it done.

A great side-effect of this method is that it can really boost your confidence and motivation. I have had days when I was sluggish in the morning. Completing various things on your to-do list in record speed changes your mood and boost your confidence!

Working smarter

Most of us have great employers who treat us with respect. But the increasing workload creates unprecedented levels of stress. Also, there is a lot of distraction these days. Think about corporate messaging systems, social media, meetings etc.. Working smarter is therefore a critical skill.Try this ten minute technique. It certainly works for me. I don’t use it every day. But I do pull it out when I really need to. Happy Labor Day!

You have ten minutes to complete that task! Working smarter not harder, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Time for a confession. I really hated forecasting back in my old job. Kind of crazy since I was working with clients on improving their planning, budgeting & forecasting processes. Yet, I absolutely hated doing my own forecast. What was wrong? First of all, the template was terrible. Way too much detail. It took me hours to get it done. Luckily, I only had to do this 2-4 times per year. But that was also part of the issue. Every time I received the updated template I had to start from scratch and enter a ton of data. Also, I had to re-orient myself and figure out how the template worked this time. And then there was the reconciliation between my project plans and the prior forecast. To sum it up: The ramp-up time was simply too long. It was awful. But there is a better approach: Continuous forecasting

Fire-drill

Indeed, the typical process for updating, distributing, collecting and aggregating forecasting templates can take up to a few weeks in many companies. Part of the issue is that the forecast templates are often unavailable to the user community. Analyst need to maintain and update hundreds of spreadsheet templates between forecasts (formula fixes, structural changes, data loads). The process looks something like this:

The traditional spreadsheet-driven process

At the start of a forecast cycle, templates are distributed. Many business people feel overwhelmed at that point. Starting from scratch is always tough. You have to orient yourself, your have to build numbers up etc.. As a result, business people feel that forecasting resembles a fire-drill.

Forecasting software

But there is a much better approach that many of my clients have implemented. Modern planning & forecasting software allows us to keep our forecasting templates online nearly 24*7. Forecasting software like IBM Cognos TM1 automates and significantly enhances all those manual tasks such as formula fixes, data loads, aggregations, etc.. Overall maintenance is a lot easier and the templates can be online allowing the users to work with their forecast data around the clock. Forecasters can therefore perform quick incremental changes to their forecast instead of performing time-consuming, infrequent larger data input exercises. But what is the advantage of doing that? Very simple: Incremental effort is always easier and faster than ramp-up tasks. Think about your personal life: If you spend ten minutes per day cleaning up for desk or office, everything will be in good shape. But if you let things slip for a week or two, cleaning up suddenly becomes a daunting task. This is what the process can look like:

The continuous forecasting process

Continuous Forecasting

Does this work? Absolutely. I have experienced this myself. After every client visit, I spent a few minutes updating my forecast. A lot of my clients have implemented this approach. Clients typically experience three main advantages:

• The more often you work with a system the more comfortable you become. Users tremendously benefit from that. Their efficiency increases.
• The actual forecast process is a lot faster for the business users. Finance is able to reduce cycle-time.
• Forecasts tend to be more complete. In the case of an urgent ad-hoc forecast (imagine something critical happened), the business is able to compile a near complete forecast in within a short period of time.

But the Finance department now has to carefully manage this process and clearly communicate timelines and expectations to the business. Submission deadlines need to be crystal clear.

Let me clarify one last thing: A continuous process does NOT mean I can simply aggregate my data every night and obtain an updated forecast. No, I need to communicate to the business WHEN I need the data. But due to the 99% availability I can collect my data very quickly.

Continuous forecasting can be a powerful approach! Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Good or bad. If you are interested in this topic, why don’t you join of our Rolling Forecast workshops or IBM Finance Forum?

Why continuous forecasting is more enjoyable, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

When I watch interviews with international sports stars, I sometimes have to laugh. Every inch of their clothing is plastered with logos from sponsors. It’s usually impossible to see or remember even a single one of them amidst this smorgasbord. We can spot a similar overload problem in many dashboards and reports. Corporate logos and stock photographs are injected to “enhance” the visual appearance of the objects. This is bad enough but some pictures are worse than others. Two weeks ago I saw an example of that. Several reports and dashboards featured photos of beautiful eyes. It was supposed to be a metaphor for business insight. Such a shame – it simply did not work.

Focal Point: Eyes

Decoration hardly ever motivates people to effectively consume information. On the contrary, photos and logos usually steals attention and waste valuable space. And human eyes are especially ill-suited as embellishment for reports or dashboards. Here is why: Eyes demand people’s attention (this is called visual weight) and they rank before anything else when we look at a photograph, a picture or a dashboard. Our eyes automatically gravitate towards that part. It’s like a magnet – eyes attract eye contact. And that pretty much explains why we should not include photos of eyes in our dashboards or reports. Take a look at the example below.

Notice how you keep jumping back to look at the eyes. This is a simple example, of course. Imagine if this was a full-screen dashboard. Your eyes would constantly flip back and forth between content and those blue eyes. Focus is lost. Plus there is the obvious question – why do we need to include the eyes here in the first place? They do not add any value whatsoever.

Let’s look at the better version.

Notice the difference? You are now able to focus on the chart. There is no distraction.

A lesson for report & dashboard design

Next time you design a report or dashboard, delete those logos and photos. Most of them do not add any value, anyway. The objective of proper report and dashboard design is to deliver information in the best possible way. Human eyes represent one of the biggest possible distractions. Images of eyes clearly have no space in report and dashboard design. Hence my advice for the day: Avoid eye contact at all cost!

Dashboard Design Advice: Avoid eye contact at all cost!!!, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

There is a lot of buzz about Cognos Insight. It is a great tool for analyzing and discovering data. There is also the ability to perform powerful what-if analysis through the use of write-back capabilities. But Cognos Insight is actually more than just a personal desktop analytics tool. You can use it to create visually appealing planning applications for IBM Cognos TM1.

An awesome planning client

Many business users literally hate the mandatory planning, budgeting and forecasting processes. Part of the issue are the cumbersome spreadsheet templates. Cognos Insight provides a radically new approach. You can develop visually appealing applications that connect directly to your TM1 model. Here are some of the great things you can do with Cognos Insight:

• Create detailed instructions for the planning or forecasting process
• Instructions can include images and hyperlinks
• Automate process steps by including action buttons
• Provide additional planning context by including dashboards that connect to your Cognos 10 models

To do that, you simply have to connect Cognos Insight to the workflow of a specific TM1 planning application.

Cognos Insight and TM1

Let’s take a look at a simple example – a sales forecasting model. It is a well-known best practice to include specific instructions in a planning template. That helps the business understand the model and to identify specific tasks that they need to focus on. Cognos Insight allows you to insert text boxes, images and hyperlinks. Action buttons make it easy for casual users to jump between different planning pages and cubes. The result is a clean-looking set of pages.

Planning and forecasting should go hand-in-hand with analysis. Cognos Insight allows you to include dashboards and reports from your Cognos 10 or TM1 environment. This makes it very easy and pleasant for the business people:

You can finally also include traffic lights and real-time charts right in your actual planning application. This provides users with instantaneous & visual feedback. We all know that a picture says more than a thousand words, right?

Last but not least, you can also leverage great short-cuts for entering data.

Cognos Insight & TM1

Cognos Insight is much more than just a personal analytics tool. Using it as a client for TM1-based planning or forecasting models offers up some fantastic opportunities. Business users love the visual and interactive applications you can build. Is it hard to create these applications? No, not really. All it takes is drag and drop.

About our guest blogger – Paul Bremhorst

Paul is currently working as a Solution Architect for the IBM Business Analytics Product Marketing team. He joined Cognos as a BI Consultant in 2007 from a background of developing sales reports in the banking and finance sector. He lives in beautiful Stuttgart, Germany and loves to ride his motorcycle.

The other side of Cognos Insight – A powerful planning client for TM1 (Guestpost), The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

The other day, a former colleague sent me several screenshots of a ‘dashboarding solution’ a new team member had proposed to him. What I saw was wild: A set of complex, colorful and overloaded screens. Not just one screen, but a whole book of different pages. There were long tables mixed with colorful gauge charts. It took me a few minutes to understand what was happening. This was clearly not a dashboard but rather a poorly designed reporting application. A dashboard is meant to provide us with a quick overview of our most critical business information. It is not supposed to deliver us a 360 degree detailed view.

Unfortunately, too many dashboards are too complex these days. They fail to provide information at a glance. Overly complicated and saturated screens frustrate managers. To avoid project failure we should apply careful restraint during the dashboard design process. I have found that the dashboard in my car provides inspiration for that.

The car dashboard

Car dashboards are quite brilliant. They allow us to obtain critical information within a split of a second. How do they manage to do that? Here are some reasons why:

• Simple – How long does it take to understand the dashboard of a new car? The answer is: It takes a few seconds. The car dashboards are deceptively simple. You don’t need the manual to understand how it works.
• Compact – They are compact. There is a single screen. We don’t have to scroll through multiple screens to find out how fast we are going.
• Uncluttered – Most car dashboards are super clean and uncluttered. Colors are carefully selected. There aren’t any logos. Every object has a clear purpose. It would be hard to take anything away.
• Visual – Yes, they are visual. Visuals are easier to read than text. We do not find a table with our historical speed and RPM in the dashboard. Reading that would take too long and it would take the focus away from the road.
• Important- Only the most important information is displayed.Everything serves a clear and distinct purpose. It would be almost impossible to take anything away.
• Exceptions – Identifying problems is really simple – a red icon will immediately alert us. We don’t have to go digging for that critical information.
• Entry point – Modern cars allow us to drill-down whenever there is an exception. But that is truly optional. The dashboard simple acts as the entry point and not more than that.

Your management dashboards

Next time you design a performance dashboard, think about this list. A lot of those qualities should also apply to your reports. It is our job as business analytics professionals to make it easy for managers and knowledge workers to turn data into information. But to do that, we need to pay attention to the design process.

What my car taught me about designing a successful dashboard, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

The budgeting and business forecasting processes often have a poor reputation in many companies. Part of the issue is that the people involved in the process do not see a lot of value in it. Last year in November, two of my colleagues and I conducted a survey amongst 162 senior finance professionals in the UK.  One section of the short questionnaire focused on the value and the perception of the business forecasting process.

Good is the enemy of great

The survey asked finance professionals two different questions:

• How do you rate the value that you get out of the forecasting process?
• How does the business rate the value they get out of the forecasting process?

Here is what we found:

Business Forecasting: Low satisfaction & value

The results are sad – not necessarily surprising, though. Only 37% of the finance people rate the value they receive from the forecast process as good or outstanding. The rest feel it is just adequate or poor. It gets worse when we look at the business users. Less than 27% feel they receive good value.

Some people might be tempted to say that the results are not that bad. Be careful, though. Business forecasting is a critical process in turbulent times. And it is time-consuming in many organizations. We should therefore not be satisfied with ‘adequate’ or ‘poor’. Imagine we would apply the same standard to our personal life? It would be a very sad life, indeed. Or think about professional athletes – they would not put up with ‘adequate’ materials or training plans. That would put them in the lower performance bracket.

Time for change

Take a look at your business forecasting processes. How satisfied is finance? What about the business? We should not accept ‘adequate’ or ‘poor’ for an answer. The stakes are too high. And we should not waste our valuable time managing low-value processes.

It’s time for change! In one of the upcoming posts,  I will write about some of the reasons that lead to the poor perception of the business forecasting processes. In the meantime, you can find ideas for improving your processes on this blog. Alternatively, pick up the fantastic book Future Ready: How to Master Business Forecasting. The authors Steve Player and Steve Morlidge have done a fine job of providing insightful best practices.

Remember the words of management researcher Jim Collins: “Good is the enemy of great.”

The reputation of business forecasting is not positive – Time for change!, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Predictive analytics are an extremely hot and interesting area for most organizations. No wonder, there are some extremely cool and amazing use cases. Let’s take a look at a sweet example: cake. Bakeries around the world struggle with either reducing their waste or maximizing their potential. There are days when cakes seem to be flying off the shelves. And then there are bad days when baskets full of fresh goods have to be thrown away. Finding the right balance required luck and a great amount of intuition in the past. But the German company Meteolytix has found a better way. They have developed powerful sales forecast models that utilize weather data, historical sales and information about other contributing factors. The result is a self-learning automatic closed loop statistical model which increases revenue and lowers costs by minimizing over- and under-production. IBM SPSS is at the heart of this amazing solution.

Predictive Analytics at work

How does this work? Meteolytix offer their services to a number of large bakery chains across Germany. The Meteolytix teams feed predictive models with data that is collected from a range of sources: weather data from worldwide sensors and systems, daily sales figures from store POS systems and historical sales figures from ERP systems. Data flows into a customer-specific predictive model. The system determines daily sales forecasts for each branch and each product and dispatches them to the customer’s systems. The insights enable more exact material requirements planning, production and logistics optimization as well as considerable reduction in returns. Better control of stock levels creates increased sales and greater customer retention, and less waste of valuable food.

Better performance

Meteolytix‘s approach works. Their customers are able to reduce returned goods by approximately 33%. In addition, their customers are able to streamline the order process which saves many hours of work. The output from the models can also be used for workforce planning. I am pretty sure that this is just the beginning. Take a look at the new TV spot that features this use case. It’s fun!

The Meteolytix story

The Meteolytix story is very intriguing. They have a small team, yet they are able provide measurable and very impressive ROI to their clients. Think about your business – how could you apply predictive analytics? Do you have any interesting stories to share?

You can find a detailed case study about Meteolytix on this URL.

P.S.: Many thanks to my good friend Jen Rolfe for providing me with the delicious photo. She is a very talented baker.

I see a cake on the horizon! Meteolytix use predictive analytics to drive success, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Chart 1 – The Lollipop of Products

The Lollipop - Makes sense?

Chart 2 – The Pyramid of Deception

The Pyramid - Admired for its shape and power

Chart 3 – Walk that line

The trend is your friend? Or maybe not?

Chart 1 – Comments

Pie charts are notoriously ill-suited for displaying more than 2-3 different parameters. Notice how difficult it is to understand that lollipop chart. A bunch of products have similar COGS. The chart not only hurts your eyes, but it is unusable. Here is a different option.

Same data....different perspective. This actually makes sense.

Chart 2 – Comments

I am not a fan of 3D charts. Using a pyramid chart is like adding insult to injury. Not sure that I will ever understand why one would use a pyramid type shape to visualize data. Anyway….The chart further gives the impression that Q4 revenue has dropped by 50%. The y-axis starts at 80 instead of 0. This is a big mistake as our brain compares the relative sizes of the objects. Here is the better version.

Just a 17% drop....not 50%

Chart 3 – Comments

The line chart implies that the performance is terrible – it drops. Is that really so? The answer is no. Line charts provide a sense of continuity (time). We should therefore never use a line chart for values that do not belong together. But chart 3 connects different regions in a line. This is wrong. Depending on what we are trying to analyze, we could draw the following chart.

One potential option - We can now compare the different quarters for each region

Do you have any interesting Easter Egg charts to share with the audience of this blog? Please reach out to me and submit your examples (email cp(at)sftwins.com )

An Easter Egg hunt with three charts, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Last year, I posted an interview with Steve Veilleux, president of the Quebec Cognos User Group. This article has gotten a lot of attention. I therefore decided to reach out to another very successful user group: The German Cognos User Group. The three leaders of this organization volunteered for an interview. Please meet Kai Noack, Martin Otto and Erik Purwins.

Christoph: What is the purpose and mission of your Cognos User Group?

Kai Noack: Our group has a clear mission:

• Provide a forum for IBM Cognos users to exchange knowledge and share experiences.
• Provide deep expertise in all IBM Cognos related questions via newsletters and conferences.
• Connect with IBM management to discuss trends and potential issues.

We cover all IBM Cognos products (BI, Performance Management, etc.).

Christoph: How many members do you have and how do you communicate with each other?

Martin Otto: Our group was founded back in 1998. Membership has grown membership rapidly. We currently have over 300 active members from over 100 different companies. The group targets German speaking associates: 95% come from Germany and the remaining 5% are spread between Austria and Switzerland. Our roster of associates features active Cognos users, administrators, project managers and consultants.

We have three main communication channels:

• The website is our hub. It provides news, updates and other relevant information. There is also a discussion forum.
• Frequent newsletters
• Seminars and conferences are the ‘glue’ that hold our group together. We organize a bunch of those every year. They are very successful and provide us with the ability to develop long-lasting relationships.

Christoph: Do you have to pay to become a member? If yes, how much and how do you utilize the funds?

Erik Purwins: Our group is completely independent. IBM does not sponsor us. Anybody who is interested in IBM Cognos and Business Analytics can join our group. But we do charge for the membership. There are currently two types of memberships: Personal (100 EUR p.a.) and corporate (EUR 250 p.a.). The corporate model is very attractive as it allows up to 20 people from an organization to participate in our activities. The majority of our members have a corporate account.

The fees that we collect are used for several purposes: maintenance of our website, conferences and marketing. German law also requires us to utilize a professional accountant and external tax advisor.

Christoph: What are the benefits of being a member in the German Cognos user group?

Kai Noack: There are a number of benefits for our members:

• Education – we have a big focus on knowledge sharing. Our members have diverse backgrounds and have a lot of accumulated knowledge.
• Problem solving – our community allows us to jointly solve problems
• Direct connection to IBM – we enjoy an excellent relationship with IBM. This allows us to voice concerns, share ideas and obtain critical information
• Ability to detect trends – we frequently invite guest speakers and conduct polls
• Fun – our members really enjoy being part of the group. We are all passionate about business analytics. Being surrounded by like-minded professionals is fun and rewarding.

We strongly believe that our group is contributing to the success of the different IBM Cognos implementations in the German speaking countries. As a matter of fact, members claim that being part of the group feels like having a professional consultant available 24/7. Our combined knowledge is that rich and deep.

Christoph: Tell me more about your conferences.

Martin Otto: We typically organize 4-6 conferences and workshops per year. Some of the meetings are more general, others focus on a specialized topic. Two years ago, we hosted an event about running Cognos on mainframes, for example. The events are actually open to non-members as well. We do believe we profit from having a larger circle participate. Non-members typically pay a surcharge for participating.

We usually invite at least one representative from IBM. This provides all members with the ability to have a direct connection to IBM. At the same time, IBM benefits from being able to connect with their loyal customers. It’s a win-win situation.

Christoph: There are some regions that do not have a user group. What advice would you have for IBM Cognos sponsors and users who are thinking about forming or joining a similar user group?

Erik Purwins: There are certainly a lot of lessons.

• We highly recommend defining a clear vision for the group. Our group is focused on technical topics, for example. Having that vision provides clarity and drives success. Members know what to expect when they join us. The majority of them either have a technical background or they enjoy discussing the technical topics.
• Organize professional meetings. As mentioned earlier, they are the glue for our group. We do charge a small fee for all our meetings (in addition to the annual fee). That allows us to provide the best possible service (great locations, professional setup, etc..). Charging for attendance also acts as a filter for those people who are not passionate about the topic.
• The conferences need to be focused and need to feature relevant content. Speakers are highly encouraged to focus on specific lessons-learned that benefit the attendees. Our members therefore have the ability to gain a tremendous amount of knowledge.
• Edit your content. We actively discourage ‘sales and marketing’ type content. We learned our lesson early on when some people ‘hijacked’ a meeting to sell their services or software. Our group is not a market place for selling. Our members expect to learn something when they join our organization.

Christoph: Thanks much for your time!

You can find out more information about the German Cognos User Group on their homepage.

“Focus is key for success” says the German Cognos User Group, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals

Do you enjoy wasting time? I surely don’t and I do not have patience engaging in activities that do. Unfortunately, over the past few months I did witness several completely useless discussions about tools and their specific features and functions. So much wasted time and energy! While everybody focused on boasting & bitching, core issues were completely ignored. This is so wrong! But let’s back up for a second…

Tools, tools, tools

It's always about the tools, isn't it?

Back in February, my favorite camera manufacturer released a groundbreaking piece of equipment. The discussion forums and relevant blogs were going crazy for a while. People expressed their enthusiasm for the new features. However, the general tone in the discussion forums quickly turned sour. Photographers were lashing out at each other. It got really stupid (“Do you know how to count megapixels!”) and the discussions were far removed from the subject that should be at the core: photography. Photography is about taking great photos that touch people. It’s not about pixel peeping. One person made an especially smart comment: “Finally. This is the camera that provides me with endless freedom. All other cameras in the market have limited my creativity so far.” Oh well…..I am sure Ansel Adam would hold his belly laughing on the floor. His creativity was truly limited by his huge camera and the heavy stacks of film plates…..NOT!

Business Analytics

There is a similar issue in business analytics. We sometimes spend too much time thinking and talking about the tools. Back in my Big 5 days, I sat with a client who was very dissatisfied with his BI tools from a certain vendor. He claimed that the lack of gauge charts amongst two other things explained the low user adoption. Guess what – the company bought a different tool but the dashboards still sucked. Why? They thought the tool would provide a miracle fix. All their discussions were focused on the tools and not the business process. I am still 100% sure that they could have built a highly valuable solution with their old software. Granted, it did not look sexy. But it was highly functional. Time for a reality check: High-pixelated garbage is still worse than a low-resolution masterpiece.

High-pixelated garbage?

“Men have become the tools of their tools.” Henry David Thoreau

What’s the issue here? A ton of time is wasted discussing tools. The sad truth is that a new tool won’t guarantee success. Poor data sources, sloppy business processes or lack of user engagement are often counteracting the new benefits.  etc.. Better tools alone won’t create better output. It takes skills to put the tools to good use. A poorly composed photograph that was taken with an expensive camera is still a crappy picture. A poorly designed dashboard built with an expensive tool will collect dust. It’s that simple. Ansel Adams is one of the most admired photographers out there. He used ancient tools. Would he have been able to make even better photos with today’s equipment? Most likely, but his photographs are still absolutely amazing.

Which photo was taken with an expensive camera?

Work on your skills instead of wasting time.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a time when it is really important to think about your tools. But it can’t be the constant focus. It’s easy and comfortable to drool over or to bash a set of features and functions. It’s a lot harder to put these tools to their best use. Pixel and dashboard peeping is a form of laziness. It distracts us from what’s important. Instead, we should take the time to hone our skills: data modeling, dashboard design, visualization techniques, business trends, etc.. My prior client that I mentioned earlier never took the time to work on the inputs for the dashboards.

Well, I stopped reading the camera forums and have decided that the discussions won’t help me take better photographs. Instead, I have resorted to taking more photos, instead. Why don’t we take the time to sit down with our business partner and build a solid prototype? Why don’t we attend a training in report design? Why don’t we read an article about data visualization?

Are you kidding me? There is more than just the tools!, The Performance Ideas Blog - Best Practices for Business Analytics Professionals