Erik on Software

New Book Review: "Under Control"

New book review for Under Control: Governance Across the Enterprise (CA Press), by Jacob Lamm, Sumner Blount, Steve Boston, Marc Camm, Robert Cirabisi, Nancy E. Cooper, Galina Datskovsky, Christopher Fox, Kenneth V. Handal, William E. McCracken, John Meyer, Helge Scheil, Alan Srulowitz, and Robert Zanella, Apress, 2010, reposted here:

A team of 14 executives from CA (formerly Computer Associates) assembled this collection of related essays, each of which can feasibly stand alone as separate white papers, on governance across the enterprise. While other texts have been written on this subject matter in the past, the authors believe that they provide a unique perspective, since CA has directly experienced the consequences of its own inadequate governance in the past.

After introducing the concept of enterprise governance, the authors present discussions on policy management, risk management, portfolio management, risk governance, IT governance, and information governance, as well as their relationships with the regulatory environment, finance, and sustainability. The two appendixes comprise the compliance and risk committee charter of CA, as well as the corporate governance principles of CA.

This reviewer especially appreciated the high-level overview by Jacob Lamm, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at CA, on the rise of governance and how governance looks today. As Lamm writes, "like many terms in the public eye in recent months, governance is in the eye of the beholder, and definitions can vary from one author to another. But the essence of the definitions is generally the same. Put simply, governance is the culture, policies, procedures and controls that help ensure a company will meet its business goals".

Lamm continues by recognizing that "governance is far from a new concept; corporations have long practiced it. But there has been a change in the level of attention tiven to governance. This increased emphasis has been driven by the needs of the corporation, the stockholders, and regulatory bodies". Lamm then discusses some of the key business drivers for improved corporate governance, and then presents the key goals of good governance, and some of the activities and roles that this might entail.

The diagrams in this text remind this reviewer of those that one might find in many books published by Harvard Business School Press. For example, the diagram on common risk management approaches that Sumner Blount provides illustrates well the four permutations of the manner in which risk can be addressed (accept it, transfer it, mitigate it, or avoid it), and the diagram on likelihood and impact of risk that Rob Zanella provides depicts well the relationship between these two concepts.

In addition, although CA approaches are discussed throughout this text, the references to third-party materials are abundant. For example, Network Frontier's Unified Compliance Framework (UCF), a repository that harmonizes IT controls from over 400 international regulatory requirements, standards, and guidelines, is discussed. Recommended especially to those new to governance or seeking to expand their understanding of how governance is increasingly needed following the economic crisis of 2008, as a consultant this reviewer is looking forward to more business texts that balance the sizable and reputable catalog of technical texts already published by Apress.

New Book Review: "Life Balance"

New book review for Life Balance: How to Convert Professional Success into Personal Happiness - Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner (The Ultimate Consultant Series), by Alan Weiss, Jossey-Bass / Pfeiffer - A Wiley Imprint, 2003, reposted here:

This text is part of a 7-part series by the author called "The Ultimate Consultant", and while this reviewer may not be interested in reading the entire series, another text in the series, "How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession: Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner", was so well done that the premise of this book peeked my interest. It is not often that one finds material on the subject matter at hand - life balance that specifically addresses the consultant. As Weiss writes, "if you've achieved success in this profession - or expect to - then you deserve to enjoy that success in support of your life priorities". Balance at work, balance at rest, and balance in relationships is discussed, and a portion of the material presented originated from the author's "Balancing Act: Blending Life, Work, and Relationships" newsletter.

In the chapter entitled "Leverage - Archimedes Was Right: There's a Reason Why the 'Big Eight' Have Slimmed Down", Weiss offers an important reminder that this consultant appreciated: "There are several reasons for working hard and not smart, but the most critical is the search for perfection. We are tentative and hesitant to proceed unless we feel we've done everything possible to ensure success. However, most success is actually accomplished en route to the goal, meaning that the adjustments and modifications made along the way are the keys, since they are in reaction to real-time events and not hypothesized events. When you're 80 percent ready to move, move! The report, presentation, evaluation, meeting, workshop, or whatever will not be improved demonstrably by demonically seeking to improve that final 20 percent. Moreover, that final 20 percent of improvement is seldom perceived by the other party. In other words, the workshop participants, meeting attendees, reader of the report, person being evaluated, and other recipients can't appreciate the distinction of that final fifth. What they can readily appreciate are any adjustments you make that improve their lives."

Also well received by this reader was the chapter entitled "Innovation and Risk: We're Here to Make Waves, Not to Stick Our Toes in the Water", where Weiss writes: "People who tell you they've never failed are in one of three positions: (1) they've never tried anything really worthwhile; (2) they have and don't realize it; or (3) they're lying. Failure - and the willingness to take risks which may lead to failure - is the mark of someone whose professional life is remarkably in balance. Trying to avoid failure at all costs is highly stressful (because it's a game that can't be won). More importantly, you cannot run your professional life on the basis of not losing, not failing, and not incurring setbacks. In this business, we must play to win, not play to avoid losing. Every time you see an athletic team of any nature with a big lead lose the lead and the game in the latter stages of the competition, it's because the coach has opted to play it safe and try to protect the lead. That is, instead of playing with the intent to win, the team is playing with the intent not to lose. These are two radically different philosophies, and the latter is death to an entrepreneur."

In the appendix, the author offers a somewhat eclectic list of 150 personal pieces of observation and advice that he has assembled from his experience, and reiterates the refrain from other texts in his series: "Improve by just 1 percent a day, and in 70 days you're twice as good". This advice ranges from the serious in #4: "People often make the mistake of allotting time for various aspects of their life each week, thinking that the technique provides balance (two hours a day with the pets, an hour every other day exercising, a weekend day with a significant other). But this meeting out of hours only provides quantity, not quality. The real test is in the intensity, fulfillment, and enjoyment of the time, not the mere expenditure of it." To the humorous in #34: "One of the greatest lines I ever heard was spoken by actor Dudley Moore playing the title role of 'Author' when he drunkenly says to his long-suffering valet (Sir John Gielgud, no less), 'Don't you wish you were me? I know I do.' Hey, shouldn't we all feel so good about our lives that we aspire to be us?"

Success and Failure

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success.

- James Cameron, The Return of James Cameron

Personal Reading List: 2Q2010

Bridging the Silos: Enterprise Architecture for IT Architects, by Tom Graves, Tetradian Books, 2008.

The Data Model Resource Book Volume 1 (Revised Edition): A Library of Universal Data Models for All Enterprises, by Len Silverston, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2001.

The Data Model Resource Book Volume 2 (Revised Edition): A Library of Universal Data Models by Industry Types, by Len Silverston, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2001.

The Data Model Resource Book Volume 3: Univeral Patterns for Data Modeling, by Len Silverston and Paul Agnew, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2009.

Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies - The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders, by Kenneth Bock, M.D. and Cameron Stauth, Ballantine Books, 2007.

Java Transaction Processing: Design and Implementation, by Mark Little, Jon Maron, and Greg Pavlik, Prentice Hall PTR, 2004.

Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority, by Steven Shapin, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Uncorrected Proof. Publication Date: June, 2010. By invitation from Amazon Vine.

Open Source ESBs in Action, by Tijs Rademakers and Jos Dirksen, Manning Publications Co., 2009.

Rules to Break & Laws to Follow: How Your Business Can Beat the Crisis of Short-Termism (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series), by Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, PhD, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

The Service Oriented Enterprise: Enterprise Architecture and Viable Services, by Tom Graves, Tetradian Books, 2009.

New Book Review: "Manage Your Project Portfolio"

Recently posted book review for Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, by Johanna Rothman, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2009, reposted here:

Rothman's latest effort is all about how to create and use a project portfolio effectively. Note that while the author discusses how a collection of projects might together form real value, a program, this is not the focus of this book. After discussing project portfolio basics, the author discusses project evaluation, portfolio ranking, portfolio collaboration, portfolio iterations, portfolio decisions, portfolio evolution, and ends by addressing mission. This book was composed very well, and this reviewer especially found valuable the manner in which the author points to prerequisite areas of the book by page throughout in case the reader does not read sequentially. As Rothman indicates, a project portfolio is simply the organization of projects, by date and value, to which the associated organization commits or is planning to commit. A project portfolio helps the practitioner decide when to commit to a project so that a product development team can start or continue a project, understand when it is time to terminate a project so that a team might be freed for other work, determine when to transform a project and commit to the resultant project, and serve as a visual tool to help enable negotiation on how to tackle projects when it is difficult to decide what to do next.

The author points out that "if everyone in your organization (senior managers, middle managers, technical leads, functional managers, and project managers) is wedded to a serial life cycle and no one is willing to consider finishing valuable chunks of work frequently, you can't use a pragmatic approach to managing the project portfolio". In addition, "when your organization's management refuses to make a project portfolio, that lack of decision making is guaranteeing at least one or more schedule games. Or, people will decide which project to work on first, and that decision may not agree with yours. Without project portfolio management, you have more projects competing for the same - and limited - number of people. You find you can't commit to which people work on projects when, you're awash in emergency projects, and you and your staff are running yourselves ragged multitasking" which research has consistently shown to be unproductive. While "Manage Your Project Portfolio" is not a technical text by any means and is expected to be an easy read for most audiences, the author did decide to include a couple of very effective diagrams in the second chapter that if understood by the reader will help navigate the rest of the text by understanding what a project portfolio does for the organization, and what happens when no one manages the project portfolio.

In addition to providing new material, Rothman effectively ties in the insights of a number of other authors in this space, and this reviewer especially enjoyed seeing multiple references to Frederick P. Brooks and Gerald M. Weinberg. The manner in which the author incorporates agile philosophies is especially well done. Her discussion on velocity, both individual and team, for example, is quite effective. "Since I've been working in the field, my managers and clients have been trying to measure productivity. What a waste. Individual productivity means nothing. What does mean something is a team's throughput." While many readers might have already come to the same conclusion, Rothman really drives home this point. "If you try to measure individual productivity, you will get some data. And, the people whom you are measuring will game the data, have no fear. If you measure code, they'll write a ton. If you measure tests, they'll write a bazillion. If you measure files, they will have many more than the project needs. No matter what you measure, if it's not running, tested features, then they will game the system. Don't do it. But you say, I have several single-person projects. Surely I can measure that person's productivity. Um, no, you can't. First, I doubt that those people resist talking to each other. Second, how will you compare productivity? If Davey gets the easy projects and Sally gets the hard ones, who is more productive? I can't tell, and neither can you. Stop trying."

Adopting Analytics

Although not formally released by Harvard Business Press for another week (Amazon.com indicates February 8, 2010 availability), as expected the success of "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning" is generating interest in the "Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results" follow-up effort by Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris, and Robert Morison. The first several reader reviews have been submitted (including my own review), and I had an exchange with one of the first reviewers, Mark P. McDonald, in response to one of his comments, reiterated here:

Mark P. McDonald:

While the book discusses analytics at all levels, it tends to concentrate analytics activities into a specific group of subject matter experts. While I agree that analytics requires specific skills, setting these `quants' up as a special group may limit the spread of analytics across the enterprise. This is a minor point that does not reduce the value of the book.

Erik Gfesser:

Regarding your comment: "While the book discusses analytics at all levels, it tends to concentrate analytics activities into a specific group of subject matter experts. While I agree that analytics requires specific skills, setting these `quants' up as a special group may limit the spread of analytics across the enterprise. This is a minor point that does not reduce the value of the book." Based on my reading of this book, I need to disagree with what you are saying here. The authors repeatedly state that the spread of analytics in any given firm depends in part on the incorporation of analytical thinking across the enterprise, rather than limiting analytics to the quants. In addition, the authors point out that the abilities of quants need to be at a level far above what can be found in simple readings of a hypothetical "Analytics for Dummies" genre of texts - the knowledge required to do the heavy lifting to which the authors refer is not trivial due to the need to have a deep understanding of both statistics and the associated industries in which quants work. The philosophy that the authors expound on this subject is much akin to the enterprise adoption of Six Sigma and other process improvement or quality initiatives in the sense that limiting the knowledge of the benefits that such initiatives provides and the necessary steps to achieve associated goals to just Black Belts would jeopardize progress.

Mark P. McDonald:

Erik you are right and I mentioned this issue as one of the few about only weakness I could find. So agree with the comment and share your enthusiasm for the book and its ideas. But one point, you liken this to Six Sigma and I can see the value in the analogy. However one of the things that I have always admired about six sigma is its deployment model -- its ability to create green belts, black belts and master black belts out of every day people in the company. That deployment model should exist as well with analytics, particularly since SPC is a big part of the Six Sigma tools.

I will reiterate my recommendation for this book.

Erik Gfesser:

Interesting points. While statistical process control (SPC) might very well fall within the realm of analytics, depending on definition, Six Sigma is very much concerned with quality. The definition of "quality" can also vary depending on the project - e.g. the term might mean that the cycle time for a process needs to stay below a set limit to provide a predetermined level of cost savings - but Six Sigma is really all about reducing defects to provide measurable business value. The tools to achieve such quality goals are numerous, and many require in-depth statistical knowledge to use even if software packages might be available to aid the Six Sigma practitioner during project execution. However, the goals of the analytics in the discussion here are varied - i.e. even though Six Sigma is far from being a trivial process improvement methodology, the scope of "analytics" is much broader. The authors indicate that their definition of analytics is "the use of analysis, data, and systematic reasoning to make decisions", and further their explanation as follows: "What kind of analysis? What kind of data? What kind of reasoning? There are no hard-and-fast answers; we contend that almost any analytical process can be good if provided in a serious, systematic fashion". The analyst equivalents to the various Six Sigma Belts and Champions might vary well be what the authors refer to as "amateurs", "semi-professionals", "professionals", and "champions", but the universe of analytics is simply not as narrow as Six Sigma, and can therefore be harder to reproduce in the fashion you mention.

RSNA 2009 - Quality Improvement?

Two months ago today, I had the opportunity to spend the morning and afternoon at the RSNA 2009 trade show event at McCormick Place in downtown Chicago. December and January have been busy and quite eventful months at my current client, and so I have not had much time to gather some of the observations I made on several exhibits.

If you have not yet had a chance to attend an RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) trade show, it is important to note that commercial and research exhibits are set up in separate areas of the convention center, which contrasts somewhat with other events held at McCormick Place, such as the annual auto show, where commerce and research tend to intermingle.

There are undoubtedly a number of reasons why RSNA research exhibits are on the lower level, but regardless of reason, I tended to concentrate on the research at RSNA, whereas at the annual auto show I tend to concentrate on the commercial. As a technology consultant, I just do not find auto research very accessible, at least in the manner it is presented. I tend to prefer viewing vehicles that have already been put into production (or are set to be on the market within the year).

Most of my time amongst the research exhibits was spent viewing the sections devoted to health care software and quality. For the following snapshot that I took, I purposely excluded any indicator of researcher or specific project, other than the title to this p-chart which indicates that the project was intended to decrease the delay in reading patient cases to within one hour of the next clinic appointment.

The first thing that I noticed with this p-chart, a type of statistical quality control chart, is that it was created using Minitab, which was immediately followed by my observation that there is a seeming stark contrast between the data points preceding and following January 16. Of course, this was the date that the Six Sigma quality improvement measure was put into place, and the researchers aimed to demonstrate the increase in quality after that point in time.

Unfortunately, as a Six Sigma practitioner, it was also immediately evident to me that quality was not increased because Sigma is not calculable, regardless of the increase in number of cases read and seeming greater consistency of this number over time. In addition, it is not clear what the y-axis is intended to represent - is it truly percentage? It seems rather apparent that even though it is labeled "Percentage" that this certainly is not the case - a range of 0.850% to 1.000% does not seem worthy of our attention.

It is obviously very possible that the range here is intended to be 85.0% to 100.0%, but even if this were the case, the high number of failed statistical tests that would be flagged in Minitab would cast a shadow on this p-chart. In addition, it is probable that the data anomalies that occurred in early-January must have been the result of some special cause, which if removed would flatten this time series over the entire spread of dates, decreasing the magnitude of the post-January 16 time period, especially due to the short amount of time associated with the data.

Rather than percentage, I would have recommended that the researchers plot every single case according to the amount of actual time involved for each. Doing so would have increased the number of data plots considerably, giving a clearer picture of the actual raw data. Use of daily aggregates in this case was problematic and ill advised.

New Book Review: "Analytics at Work"

Recently posted book review for Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results, by Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris, and Robert Morison, Harvard Business Press, 2010, reposted here:

Well composed follow-up by the writers of "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning" and Robert Morison, coauthor of "Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent". While the previous effort by Davenport and Harris focused on the use of analytics for competitive strategy, this book focuses on deploying analytics in day-to-day operations. Use of the "five stages of analytical competition", which describes the analytics phases through which firms pass as their level of maturity increases from "analytically impaired" or "flying blind" to "analytical competitors" or "enterprise-wide, big results, sustainable advantage", continues here, but is now superimposed by what the authors deem the "DELTA" success factors - accessible, high-quality "Data", "Enterprise" orientation, analytical "Leadership", strategic "Targets", and "Analysts" - that are associated with the transition of firms from one level of competitive strategy to the next. The authors further this presentation of the analytical DELTA by discussing the embedding of analytics in business processes, the building of an analytical culture, the continual reviewing of analytical approaches, and meeting challenges along the way.

According to research conducted by the authors, 40% of major business decisions are not based on facts, but on the manager's gut. As the authors point out, "sometimes intuitive and experience-based decisions work out well, but often they either go astray or end in disaster: executives pursue mergers and acquisitions to palliate their egos, neglecting the sober considerations that create real value; banks make credit and risk decisions based on unexamined assumptions about always-rising asset values; governments rely on sparse intelligence before deciding whether to wage war. Such are the most extreme cases of ill-informed decision making. In other cases, nonanalytical decisions don't lead to tragedy, but they do leave money on the table: businesses price products and services based on their hunches about what the market will bear, not on actual data detailing what consumers have been willing to pay under similar circumstances in the past; managers hire people based on intuition, not on an analysis of the skills and personality traits that predict an employee's high performance; supply chain managers maintain a comfortable level of inventory, rather than a data-determined, optimal level; baseball scouts zoom in on players who 'look the part', not on those with the skills that - according to analytics - win games". And "while analytics are not perfect, we prefer them to the shoddy alternatives of bias, prejudice, self-justification, and unaided intuition. Humans often make long lists of excuses not to be analytical, but there's plenty of research showing that data, facts, and analysis are powerful aids to decision making, and that the decisions made on them are better than those made through intuition or gut instinct. Therefore, use analytics. If you can measure and analyze something, do it - but don't forget to incorporate your experience, knowledge, and qualitative insights around the world".

The point of this book is to present a set of tools to make one's firm more analytical, and demonstrate that becoming more analytical should be an essential concern for the entire organization. In essence, the authors present analytics to readers who do not necessarily want to transform their firms into analytical competitors, but to move them to greater analytical maturity. This reviewer particularly enjoyed the second part of this book, which discusses various topics centered around the concern of staying analytical. For example, the authors discuss the difference between "craft" and "industrial" approaches to employing business analytics, where the former is a one-time effort that is inherently limited in effect, and the latter takes more time and effort up front but leads to instantaneous automated decision making. Accompanying this discussion is an explanation on how embedded predictive analytics fits into claims processing in the insurance industry, and a well presented diagram by SPSS that shows how manual and automated or partially automated decision making can be joined together in one overall process, reminiscent of what James Taylor and Neil Raden present at length in "Smart (Enough) Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions". The authors later discuss what their research has concluded on how to overcome obstacles, or "sticking points" specific to embedded analytics implementations.

The chapter entitled "Build an Analytical Culture" combined with the earlier chapter "Analysts" from the first part of the book are especially well written, incorporating discussions on how to start and grow an analytical culture, as well as how to attract and retain analytical talent. In the closing chapters, the authors present what they do and do not promise, and as a consultant this reviewer especially appreciated this aspect of this text; regarding the latter, "analytical decisions aren't the only ones that will lead to success", "your analytical decisions won't always be perfect", "you'll need to develop new analytically based insights to stay ahead of the competition", "sometimes the world will change, and invalidate the models that guide your decisions", and "analytics are not all you need to make good decisions"; regarding the former, "you'll make better strategic decisions", "you'll make better tactical and operational decisions", "you'll have a better ability to solve problems", "you'll have better business processes", "you'll be able to make faster decisions and get more consistent results", "you'll be able to anticipate shifting trends and market conditions", and "you'll get better business results". In the view of this reviewer, this book is not only appropriate for business readers new to analytics, but for consultants and other practicing individuals already comfortable with analytics who want to continue to demonstrate the value of analytics to clients. Well recommended.

Past Book Review (May 13, 2007): "Competing on Analytics"

Past book review (i.e. posted prior to starting this blog) for Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, by Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris, Harvard Business School Press, 2007, reposted here:

The recent Wall Street Journal review of this work captivated me enough for a follow-up read. Competing on Analytics is presented in two parts. The first presents analytics and how it might be adopted by businesses, and the second is a more practical discourse on how readers might use the information from the first part. Much of the material in this book can undoubtedly be found elsewhere, but what sets this book apart from industry periodicals and online resources is that it is very well written for an apparent target audience consisting of business professionals not familiar with business intelligence and how it might be used to compete in the marketplace. And this book can be easily read in an afternoon. The authors are correct that Competing on Analytics is the first text to specifically address analytical competition, and the well-written introduction to this subject is enhanced by numerous industry examples. For example, heavily sports-minded American business professionals might find it interesting that Davenport and Harris explain how analytics are currently being used to successfully recruit athletes.

What is a bit perplexing with this book, as well as it is written, is that there are very few diagrams presented for such a topic. Most business professionals, for example, probably agree that what makes dashboards so popular with management is that they are very visual. One would think that more diagrams would be included for such a readership. The best diagram in the book, Figure 1-2, which graphs Degree of Intelligence versus Competitive Advantage, is not even new to the book (it was adapted from a diagram by SAS). However, the authors do a great job at presenting analytical competition topics that include what they deem the "four pillars of analytical competition", and the "five stages of analytical competition", although this latter offering is a bit much like the Capability Maturity Model, a model created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University that has been imitated ever since it was first developed in the mid-1980s. In summary, Competing on Analytics provides a great introduction to an important business/economics concept that was previously unavailable in textbook form, but those interested in practical implementations of business intelligence, such as data warehousing, will need to look elsewhere.

Google Analytics

Since October 2009 when Google Analytics was set up for this blog (see my earlier post), the map overlay for the number of visits has evolved considerably:

However, it is quite clear that the number of pages per visit continues to be significantly greater for visitors from the United States: