But what does “leading” really mean? The first time I heard the phrase my immediate reaction was: Huh? That sounds terrible. Are they not going to strive to be the best airline? Aren’t they trying to be #1 like most would assume is the goal of a merger? But by what measure? Size? Revenue? Fleet age? Service and satisfaction? Destinations served? Complaints? Lost bags?  Cost management? 

For an industry with dozens of closely watched measures of performance, creating a public marketing message to be “leading” is vague and pointless to me. It’s also a bit risky. After all, vague or non-existent goals will always make you successful, but maybe not in the way you intended. It is a safe way to go, though, if you are not sure what you’re doing or how things might go. Maybe the new United will be able to say by the end of next year, “We’re leading with the worst ontime performance of any airline!”. That’s nice.

We’ve all heard the phrase “for good measure.”   Hey, throw in some extra salt for good measure! Maybe you do it just in case what you’re cooking tastes terrible. It seems rather arbitrary. Why not taste it first? So, a more thoughtful approach to planning and success may be in order. I have worked with plenty of clients who do not understand how to make a good measure. Their five year plans are a wealth of vague, uncertain and impossible to measure goals, usually in an attempt to placate many differing views.

Think about this as you are setting goals for the new year for yourself or your organization.  Are the measures meaningful? Can they really be measured? Is the necessary data collected? How will you know you have achieved the goal? Is it actually a good measure people will recognize as success?

After all, if you are ”leading” the airline industry that still has a terrible overall reputation for service, you haven’t really set a good measure or accomplished much.

Many of the clients we work with are asking the same kinds of questions proposed in the article. These questions are a logical extension of the research results. They want better insight into student behavior and achievement and what administrators can do to increase student success:

• Are students who place in a developmental Math or English course taking that course? Do they succeed in that course and then succeed in the college level course?
• Are students ignoring the developmental course requirement and do they succeed at any different rate than those who pass placement tests? (The article suggests students are quite good at self-selecting into the college level course and ignoring the test results!)
• What are the characteristics of students who do not succeed at developmental or college level courses?
• Are there specific courses or pathways that are more successful than others based on historical activity?

Of course, all of this really gets to the efficacy of the entire placement and developmental education system. Some states, with the help of research foundations, are attempting to address significant problems in misaligned curriculum between the developmental course and the college level course that should follow. Similarly, they are also applying new research in learning to redesign curriculum for greater real world application and effectiveness. The Developmental Education Initiative is one example.

Our job as BI consultants is to effectively understand the business questions and help institutions with the collection of useful data that can be presented in a way that informs the change process. We have several client engagements currently underway that are doing just that. I’ll be able to see for myself from exposure to specific institutions what the state of developmental education success is for their students.

First, let’s clear up one of the common misunderstandings that I have seen on various comment threads on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Despite the fact that John Speer, current CEO of Datatel, will lead the new combined company, this is not Datatel acquiring SunGard HE. Hellman & Friedman, a venture capital firm that already owns Datatel, is buying SunGard HE with plans to meld the two companies into one. As such, I would tend to consider the transaction a merger of equals. Hellman & Friedman clearly have a greater understanding of the higher ed. marketplace through the eyes of Datatel management – having owned them for the past several years – while SunGard HE brings the greater client base and broader product and service portfolio. In the end, I believe that we’ll see a blend of products and services from the two companies that it truly will be a fusion of the best talent from each that rises to the top.

But it is a long way from here to there. The first 18 months will be the consolidation phase. There is much duplication between the two companies that will have to be dealt with. While the two companies do essentially the exact same thing, I don’t think we’ll see much in the way of product or service consolidation from the outset. Early on we will see layoffs in areas such as accounting, human resources, corporate IT, sales, and marketing. I suspect that software and services will largely be untouched. If layoffs are to be had in these areas it will be more about productivity and utilization then it will be about product consolidation.

Now, let’s speculate about product and service direction.

If you are running Banner or Colleague, don’t worry; neither of these systems is going away any time soon. In fact, I would expect the combined company to double-down and provide even greater focus to each of the platforms. Datatel has been increasingly looking to base its solutions on Microsoft technologies, while Banner is essentially married to the Oracle platform. Look for the company to further position Colleague around the Microsoft database and application eco-system as the technology will largely be the differentiator between the two ERPs.

New ERP sales in higher education are drying up. They have been for the past several years, with near 100% saturation of the target market. As a result, the company will need to eat into the client bases of the other remaining ERP companies. Look for Banner to be positioned against Oracle PeopleSoft customers, while Colleague will be aimed aggressively at the Jenzabar client base.

So what about PowerCampus? SunGard HE acquired this Microsoft based solution from ABT several years ago. After some initial investment in the student system early on, this application never seemed to gain enough traction in the industry. In the medium term, I would expect some kind of “upgrade” package presented to PowerCampus clients, designed to get them to move to Colleague.

From an overall product perspective, my guess is that new functionality will increasingly come from partner companies and software development efforts will largely be directed toward integration technologies. It’s likely the two companies will pool resources together to build common APIs and data transport technologies to help partner and 3rd party companies tie into each of the ERPs without having to do twice the work.

Business Intelligence has been a big focus for both companies in the last few years. The myriad of tool options between the two is dizzying. Expect for further consolidation around the Business Objects platform for Colleague clients and Cognos for Banner. The real action is in the data models, however. Each has a fairly well formed set of operational data models. I would not expect too much in the way of new models, as it is likely that the two will want to standardize on a single data warehousing model that works for either system.

So, what do you think? Poke some holes in my analysis above. Speculate some yourself in the comments. I’d love to hear more from some customers themselves.

When a Canadian friend of mine who happens to work for SAP Business Objects, forwarded this link to me that showcases their BI platform, I was ingtrigued. It takes full advantage of their analytics and data exploration technologies using hockey statistics. I mostly deal with higher education related data like student enrollment, retention, financial aid, and human resources. This was different and fun!

I took a look at how Washington stacked up against their second round rival Tampa Bay. Hmm…. Not such a good picture. Tampa Bay had higher average Goals For and lower Goals Against. Their offense and defense looked better by the numbers. I looked at the goalie save percentages. I compared some key individual players from each team. Everyone thought the Caps would keep winning and go to the finals. After exploring some of the data and visualizations, I wasn’t so sure of a spot in the finals. And, in fact, it didn’t happen. Sadly, the numbers seemed to support that outcome.  Certainly there is more to hockey than just numbers. Passion for play, pure skill, wanting to win, and luck sometimes create amazing upsets. That’s what happened in last year’s post-season. (And seemingly in every year’s March Madness for all of you college basketball fans!)

Of course statistics don’t always tell the whole story. Lots of other variables can come into play. And often good analysis includes domain knowledge with the human element to enhance any interpretation. But I can’t help thinking that those stats didn’t lie, and the results certainly bear that out. Now with Vancouver in the Cup finals and Tampa Bay winning tonight to force a game 6, It’s time to go back and do a bit more research and exploration!

Take a look at the site. Play around. Even if you don’t know much about hockey, it’s a good way to become familiar with some of the great analysis and visualization tools available in Business Objects. Maybe you can improve your chances of winning the office Stanley Cup pool!

What a great quote from Dr. Brene Brown at the University of Houston. You can see her TED Talk here for more about how she elevates the use of data to make change at her institution.

(Via Brand Autopsy)

And then it happened. We all were working together, as client and consultant team, to address the punch-list of items that needed to be fixed before “turning on the switch” and going live to the broader set of business users. I heard it. The language from this person changed. The ownership suddenly appeared. ”I have to research this data anomaly”  and “We have to finish the user cheat sheets and handbook”  and “I have to test this to be sure the security setup is working correctly.” 

To be honest, I am not entirely sure what triggered the change. Maybe it was the deadline of this new reporting environment being put out for all to use and either accept or reject.  And, naturally, someone deeply involved in that kind of project and commitment ultimately wants their positive imprint on a successful outcome. I know I sure did.  I suppose it is like the bird leaving the nest, or the child going off to school on their own for the first time, or maybe a teenager taking the car out for a drive by themselves after getting their full license.  Taking ownership or responsibility is perhaps a natural part of the human process of becoming more independent.

I am gratified to see this change andexperience the benefits of the client ownership in their evolving BI environment. Although  the details of this true story may seem to be unique and even readily identified by those involved, this happens in every engagement. It is not unusual, nor a cause for concern–unless, of course, the ownership never materializes .

Keys to a Successful BI Implementation with Howard CC

Lately, I’ve been working on a solution delivery scheduled for the end of this month. Here are a few key things we’ve been tracking with this client to ensure a smooth and successful rollout. Some may seem obvious, but it is easy to forget little details:

• Get the complete list of users who need access. Along with this list, it is important to have planned their access and security credentials. When considering groups and who should have access to what, make sure to assess both the data they should see, as well as the functionality they should be allowed to use in the BI platform.
• Test using actual user credentials setup as defined in the access plan. Everything can look like it is working great when logged in as the administrator or developer, but as we found out, simple things can be overlooked like the ability to change predefined queries or overwrite a standard report.
• Ensure there is adequate licensing.  Understand the type and concurrency of the license scheme you have. Often the first couple of days will see a lot of activity from the curious users. If they have trouble logging in because of limited licensing, you may have a hard time coaxing them back to the BI system again.
• Prepare a quick start or users’s guide.  As much as you might think “it’s all intuitive”, for many users new to BI, it’s not so obvious. List explicity the steps they need to take and use screen shots of the actual system with actual data so they know they are doing things correctly. There can be a lot of useful tips and tricks for navigating around reports and analyses they’ll appreciate too. It helps build confidence and buy-in to using the system.
• Validate the reports and analytics one last time.  What worked a week ago or a month ago might not necessarily work today. Like the security and access plan, the report design can sometimes be affected by little things like a changover in a month or business cycle. A back end data source may not be updated as it should have been and no alert was in place to raise the flag. New data may not fit the original formatting if boundary values weren’t well understood.  There are many possibilities to keep an eye on. While it is unlikley all issues will be caught, one last review is a good idea.

I am looking forward to the end of the month to see how well things go. Things should be ready to roll!

The C’s in Success

Communication

In my experience, there’s usually a poor communication strategy behind any really good idea that doesn’t quite get off the ground. Too often BI leaders tend to focus too long on the larger business case (ROI, institutional benefits, etc) and fizzle out on building the personal commitment, the “hearts and minds” part. What is required is continuous and focused communication with key constituents before, during and after the launch. In my experience, the success of an institutional wide BI initiative is as dependent on your political success as it is on your technical success.

To keep the institutional BI visibility high and retain the commitment of the key constituents take a cue from the masters: politicians. Political campaign platforms are based on the three C principles: (1) Crisp and Clear; (2) Context Centric; and (3) Consistent and Consistently. Every stump speech, every sound bite, every public conversation and every written message needs to be rigorously “on message,” All the BI sponsors and members of the BI development team need to follow the three C’s principles.

1.  Crisp and Clear

How do you describe the BI initiative and what value will the BI initiative have for the person you are talking to? Let’s go back to that tried-and-true technique–the elevator pitch. Can you clearly describe the goal/value of the BI initiative in 30 seconds or less? When you talk to someone about the BI initiative does your description hold that person’s attention? Or do their eyes glaze over or wander across the room?

Being crisp is about informing people about the value, what you plan to accomplish for them, in as few words as possible, and using that same crisp message in written materials.

Take this Test

Find a friend who is the least likely to understand your BI initiative, and test your “message crispness” on them. Tell them what you are doing with BI in two or three sentences. Avoid industry jargon and technical terms that only people in the BI field will understand. Then ask them to repeat what they think you are doing back to you. If they don’t come back with the right answer, the message isn’t crisp and clear.

2.  Context Centric for each Stakeholder type

You need to communicate the role they play and the value proposition to each Stakeholder type (executives, BI developers, end-users, etc).  You need to inform stakeholders about what you are doing, why you are doing it, their role in the BI initiative and the value it has for them. People need convincing as to why they should spend their time and limited resources with you. Your story should focus on how they benefit from the BI initiative (communicated from a “what’s in it for them?” perspective).

3.  Consistent and Consistently

Once you’ve nailed down your crisp message, and you’re telling your story from your stakeholder’s perspective, make sure you tell it consistently in your conversations, e-mails, in print materials, via etc.

Nothing is more disconcerting to stakeholders than hearing one story from one communications channel or individual and then hearing or reading a different version of the story from someone else or someplace else. They don’t know which version to believe. Reestablish who you are and what you are doing with every stakeholder interaction. Reinforce your story as often as possible.

In the next post we’ll explore some additional C’s to you BI development teams’ success.

The U in Success

Understanding

Another good investment is taking the time to build relationships with and among the BI development team and stakeholders. Actively involving others, with a working knowledge of the BI ecosystem, in planning and design issues is critical to building institutional commitment and designing the right solution. Research shows that the bigger the issue, the more likely we are to suck it up to ourselves. While this may seem like the wise course, think about the message it sends.  Either that your people aren’t capable of handling these issues or that you don’t trust them. Another implication is that they don’t gain the experience and skills they would need to eventually handle tough issues. So, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Most importantly it prevents you and the BI initiative from utilizing self organizing teams-one of the other keys to BI success.

It’ll be easier for people to get behind you and support the BI initiative if they feel some direct connection to who you are and what you’re about. This doesn’t need to be personal information.  What you need to concentrate on is sharing information about (a) how you see the team living up to the vision; (b) improving the depth of understanding of the BI ecosystem; (c) sharing some of the obstacles the team faces; and (d) building trust and soliciting their input. Where feasible, let them in on new developments and provide context that will help them understand the necessity for the change. In short, create the narrative of what’s happening in the larger institution and create an atmosphere of trust and open communication. If you can do this then you have an opportunity to utilize “Self-Organizing” teams. Self-Organizing teams (a) assign tasks to each other; (b) they coordinate and review each other’s work artifacts; (c) they collaborate on project activities; (d) they make project-related decisions (together); and (e) they take on another team member’s tasks when needed. Additionally, working in this way is (a) much faster; (b) communicating and coordinating activities among all the team members is more efficient and less error-prone; and (c) greatly improves synergy and knowledge transfer among team members. These are all critical factors for improving you BI success.

Even if you aren’t ready to unleash a self-organizing team, I would recommend creating a recurring forum where a workable number of employees, say six to ten, can interact personally. In addition to hearing your thoughts, they could ask questions about the institution and provide feedback about any impediments in their part of the BI solution to achieving the vision.