BusinessForward

By Heather Broman, BusinessForward Business Analyst

Thirsty for refreshing data? It’s ironic, because it’s certainly not for lack of quantity. In our technology-drenched world, we have so many digital artifacts and systems that we don’t even know what to consume. Without understanding how data shapes operations, among other aspects of a business, we end up with deficient insight for the future. Even the thought of it gives me dry mouth.

Over the years, I’ve consulted with many corporations about harnessing their information and hear the term “Big Data” being bandied about now more than ever. Companies are spending millions of dollars on “Big Data Warehousing” (BDW) analysis to bring it all together in to one system for dissection.

“We’ll finally be able to make sense of everything!” you shout from the rooftops. But you are still swamped with data and there are still spreadsheets and systems being used outside of the BDW system that never make it in for analysis and you never even knew they existed.

In my experience with complex technology projects, helping customers optimize their data through process design first is most sensible. No matter the industry, it always boils down to basics, which in turn, lead to successful processes.

In this first installment of a three-blog series about how to manage the ubiquitous information beast that lurks in all of our systems, we’ll focus on attempting to harness your data for strategic insights through Process-Based Data Design.

Whether I’m involved in a server decommissioning or a migration project, data can feel doomed. Think of it. Your team uses multiple systems and has all the data available or maybe even a lack of it that you didn’t know you were missing. Further, if you don’t understand where it’s used in the process and how it fits together to other parts of your business, it will be very difficult to determine relationships to run “Big Data” reports, if not impossible. But it absolutely can be done.

Top 3 Commandments to abide by when it comes to managing your data:

1. Know Thy Process: You can have all the data in the world, but it won’t make a lick of sense without a clearly defined business process. This is a critical and truly revealing process for higher level managers and executives who are not involved in day-to-day operations as well as for employees themselves. We often find many cases of “tribal knowledge” where a process is being performed by one or two people for quite some time and none of their knowledge has been transferred down to others about how to perform this process and thus, has never been reviewed to see if there are opportunities for operational efficiency gains.

Knowing your process and clearly documenting it will not only help you to uncover areas of opportunity, but also establish the relationships that occur between departments outside of your own and the method of transferring data interactions.

2. Know Thy Systems: Once you have a process defined and you have documented what systems are used in each step, you can gain great insight to where your process can be improved fairly quickly and learn what systems are critical to your process.For example, let’s say the packaging team of a retailer is using a spreadsheet to track all the orders that are being packaged. When they later update the product’s inventory after handing it off to the shipping team, it’s a risk-laden, manual process that lacks efficiency. Spreadsheet tracking is not awful to do – but in this case – there are potential time savers and an opportunity for efficiencies between the packaging and shipping teams. If they had a shared system to work with, instead of waiting for the paper to be handed over towards the end of the day, the process would look much different. Added Bonus: Most (if not all) document management systems these days have date, timestamps, role information and versioning information automatically built in. If the process ever is to be audited, a log of all the interactions can be easily provided. The same cannot be confidently said of a hard copy or digital spreadsheet.

Once you know what you’re using and where, the ability to recognize the available data becomes much clearer.

3. Use Thy Razor: Occam’s razor that is! Termed for the philosopher who posited that a complicated solution to a problem may not be best, but rather “the simplest explanation is often the right one,” it truly applies here. Keep things simple so that you can quickly identify:

• The data that you want to analyze
• The data you didn’t know you didn’t have
• The data insights/relationships to the business 
• The data you can do without, including steps in the process to which that data is tied

Drawing it out on paper can help you quickly determine these insights and relationships in very little time, and you can begin to enhance not only the quality of your data but the quality of your business processes. Soon to follow is an increased quality of life for your employees by making things more transparent and implementing some quick fixes that erase their current burden.

There is a time and place for Big Data, but all too often there are much easier, simple, “quick hit” solutions that can provide amazing results once you just have your process.

Simply, start simple. First make things clear. Fix your quick hits. Build your foundation for success. Then dive in to the complexities later.

These recommendations are a great start to getting a handle on your data and quenching your need for the sustenance it can provide your business.

Heather Broman is a solutions analyst with BusinessForward. She has a strong technical and financial services background. Look for her next installment about how to understand and manage your data. Visit her on LinkedIn.