Thursday 14 February 2019

W16_PieroAnticona_Dashboard with Business Intelligence

1)    Step 1- Problem or Opportunity Statement
A client uses for logistics, accounting and finance an ERP SAP. Its main problem is that the Board considers that reports delivered by SAP do not contain enough information to analyze the project’s cost data and contracts.
SAP support’s office has told them that the information required by the Board is available but not in the same modules report. Under this scenario, the Board wants to use a Dynamic Cube.
Most of the current reports were made importing the data from SAP and treating them in Microsoft Excel. Pivot Tables and Charts were created from this source of data.
The client has requested support to create the database with dimensions to feed the data source in the Cube and elaborate a dashboard with these dimensions in order to obtain a dynamic database to elaborate different reports and the most important to identify tendencies and impacts of decisions made during project execution.
Analyzing from the owner’s perspective, independently the number of programs or projects are ongoing, and also what the metrics are that we want to measure, why Business Intelligence platforms are better than MS Excel?
What advantages offers a Business Intelligence tool against a widely known common tool as Microsoft Excel?
2)    Step 2 – Feasible Alternatives
We have chosen the following tool because which is free to download and to install:
-       Microsoft Power BI Desktop


-       Microsoft Excel
  
3)    Step 3- Develop the outcomes for each alternative

Microsoft Power BI produces the following outcomes:
-       Segmentation and cohort analysis
-       Data streaming
-       Visualizations
-       Data connection and shaping
Microsoft Excel produces the following outcomes:
-       Charts
-       Spreadsheets
-       Macro programming language
-       Other Add-ins:
o   Analysis ToolPak: Provides data analysis tools for statistical and engineering analysis (includes analysis of variance and regression analysis)
o   Analysis ToolPak VBA: VBA functions for Analysis ToolPak
o   Euro Currency Tools: Conversion and formatting for euro currency
o   Solver Add-In: Tools for optimization and equation solving

4)    Step 4- Selection of the acceptable criteria.
Dashboards are meant to help to align organizations better, to consolidate information to help faster decision-making, to help employees to organize, and facilitate information to be shared across teams.
For executive dashboards, dashboards can be classified in three categories:
-       Strategic Dashboards: To improve organizational alignment
-       Operational Dashboards: To evaluate individual or group performance
-       Analytics Dashboards: To consolidate data insights
According to Marie Libied in Datapine.com a process to elaborate a dashboard to help in the decision-making process, we have to consider the needs of the users. For that reason, we must consider the following:
-       What decisions the end user will make based on the data
-       How familiar they are with the data or KPIs
-       How much context they already have
In order to determine how to develop a dashboard we also can follow the next steps:
1.    Define your Dashboard Audience and Objective
a.    Who are you trying to help?
b.    What do they do in a daily basis?
c.    What goals are they trying to reach?
d.    What KPIs, if measured, will help them reach their goals?
e.    How are they currently viewing these KPIs?
2.    Create Dashboard Storytelling through data
3.    Make your dashboard as customized as possible
4.    Select the right chart for your data
5.    Do not forget about color theory
As mentioned before, regardless metrics and charts to be elaborated, the client wants to analyze the following requirements:
-       Not an advanced knowledge of software
-       To work with big amount of data
-       To work with different database formats
-       Variety of charts
-       Variety of tables
-       Visualization
-       Elaborate Strategic Dashboards
-       Elaborate Operational Dashboards
-       Elaborate Analytics Dashboards

5)    Step 5- Compare the outcomes from each alternative analysis done in Step 3 against the minimum acceptable criteria from Step 4.
We have made a table to compare both alternatives. We will compare by dominance which is the best option.  

Criteria
Business Intelligence
MS Excel
Flexibility of use of the data
High
Medium
Not an advanced knowledge of software
No
Yes
To work with big amount of data
High
Medium
To work with different database formats
High
Low
Variety of charts
High
Medium
Variety of tables
High
Medium
Visualization
High
Medium
Elaborate Strategic Dashboards
High
Low
Elaborate Operational Dashboards
High
Medium
Elaborate Analytics Dashboards
High
High


6)    Step 6- Selection of the “best”.
As shown in the table above, Business Intelligence platform offers a better solution to work with big amount of data and also it does not require advanced knowledge of the platform. It is intuitive and it does not require extensive training to start using it.
In addition, a good characteristic is that it can work with different sources of a database and due to a variety of charts and tables, it is feasible to elaborate high quality of Strategic, Operational and Analytics Dashboards.

7)    Step 7- How to plan on tracking/reporting on recommended choice. 
The best way to determine if Business Intelligence is helping in decision-making is elaborating charts where we can see trends as a result of decisions made to correct bad KPIs.   


8)    REFERENCES.
1.    Microsoft. (2017, January 31). Advanced analytics in Power BI. Retrieved from https://info.microsoft.com/advanced-analytics-with-power-bi.html?Is=Website
2.    Microsoft. (2018, November 6). Power BI delivers dataflows, enterprise reporting, and major updates to Power BI Desktop | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-delivers-dataflows-enterprise-reporting-and-major-updates-to-power-bi-desktop/
3.    Pells, D. (2009, June). Global Business Intelligence for Managers of Programs, Projects and Project-oriented Organizations - Project Management World Journal. Retrieved from https://pmworldjournal.net/article/global-business-intelligence-for-managers-of-programs-projects-and-project-oriented-organizations/
4.    Smartsheet. (2018, May 4). Data Dashboards: The One Crucial Tool for Making Better Decisions, Faster. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.cio.com/article/3269792/analytics/data-dashboards-the-one-crucial-tool-for-making-better-decisions-faster.html
5.    Lebied, M. (2019, January 4). How To Make a Dashboard That Leads To Better Decisions. Retrieved from https://www.datapine.com/blog/how-to-make-a-dashboard-with-ease/
6.    Johnson, W. (2016, December 22). Top Usage of Dashboards in Business Intelligence and Decision Making. Retrieved from https://www.templatemonster.com/blog/top-usage-of-dashboards-business-intelligence-decision-making/
7.    Raftree, L. (2015, June 9). 13 Tips for Creating Data Dashboards for Decision-Making - Technology Salon. Retrieved from http://technologysalon.org/13-tips-for-creating-data-dashboards-for-decision-making/

8.    The Chartered Institute of Management ccountants. (2008, September). Improving decision making in organisations. Retrieved from http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/cid_execrep_unlocking_business_intelligence_Feb09.pdf

5 comments:

  1. Hi Piero, sorry for the delay but I had to do research on my own first. My first recommendation would be to expand on the feasible alternatives. Starting out with only two is not going to give your efforts as much credibility as it would starting out with more and then narrowing them down between steps 4 and 5. Here are the top ranked alternatives that I found. https://www.softwareadvice.com/bi/ Note that I have used Dundas and Sisense in years past and was happy with them.


    And you also need to document and justify where you got your Selection Criteria from. Here are some examples I found-
    https://www.datapine.com/blog/bi-dashboard-best-practices/
    https://selecthub.com/business-intelligence/top-business-intelligence-requirements/
    https://dzone.com/articles/the-definitive-10-point-checklist-before-arriving
    https://blog.openbridge.com/chartio-the-10-point-checklist-to-pick-your-next-business-intelligence-tool-f876c694f6c1
    https://bennyaustin.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/checklist-for-evaluating-dashboarding-tools/

    Bottom line- Your approach is a good one but I would recommend that you expand on your choices of feasible alternatives AND you need to research, explain and justify how/why you chose your Selection Criteria, understanding the more criteria you use, the more credible and less open to challenge your research will be.

    Interesting topic and I am sure it will make an exciting topic to read about.

    BR,
    Dr. PDG, Jakarta

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Paul. About your comments, I chose Power BI because is free (as mentioned in the blog) and it was the only one that I could install because my employer allowed me to do it. The others, listed in the website, are not free. I know this can be an issue but I want to compare more the use of the tool and its application than which tool performs better than others.
      My selection criteria is based on client's requirements and also some research I also did from the references listed.
      I do not know if this needs more justification as you suggest but I can work on something more elaborated after visiting those references.

      Delete
  2. PS I am sure I provided you with Steve's paper on dashboards? https://pmworldjournal.net/article/best-class-dashboards-oil-gas-projects/

    While I think your topic is different from his, it may be worth looking at how he set his paper up and how he did his analysis in selected and making his recommendations?

    Might be worth a quick review...

    BR,
    Dr. PDG, Jakarta

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have read Steven's paper but I found out as you said that the topic is different and I've not considered as a reference.

      Delete
  3. THANKS FOR SHARING SUCH A AMAZING CONTENT
    GREAT PIECE OF WORK!!!
    REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR WORK!!!
    BIM Implementation USA

    ReplyDelete

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