Great article from Baseline magazine…..this is written from a generic IT implementation perspective, but could easily apply to everyone of the ERP/CPM projects I have ever been involved with.

If you don’t subscribe to Baseline, either in paper, online, or via email alerts, you should.

http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Enterprise-Planning/8-Ways-To-Save-Your-Next-Project/?kc=EWKNLFIN020408STR2

I have always felt that Cognos does a great job with support, but I really think the addition of this new support community is really good news for the Cognos ecosystem.

I posted a question a few minutes ago, and got a response in less than 5 minutes from a Partner in Australia. Way to Go Cognos… 

This guide to EP model design and administration is more complete than anything provided by Cognos….

 http://ykud.com/blog/?page_id=148

 All Hail Ykud!

 Greetings.  I just got a email  newsletter from Bill Inmon at http://www.inmoncif.com.

 For those of you not familiar with Mr. Inmon, he is one of the the two gurus of Data Warehousing…Ralph Kimball is the other.

I found Bill’s short email on the history and current state of Data Warehousing as being quite interesting…Certainly, many data warehouses out there have not followed the either Inmon’s or Kimball’s approaches to data modelling, but this is to be expected. In a world of economic scarcity, pressure is put on all of us to deliver something that works…not something that follows textbook theory. That being said, Data warehousing projects are not delivering the value they should, so new approaches, such as DW 2.0 are needed.

The key issue however is not a technical one..it is a matter of changing how businesses use and collect information. The perfect technical platform in an organization that doesnt believe in making decisions based on information is worthless.

___________________________________ 

Dear DW 2.0 Reader

The School of Business (Center for Corporate Education) at Virginia Commonwealth University will host the Bill Inmon DW2.0 Certification Course, March 4 - 6, 2008

Join Bill Inmon at VCU’s Center for Corporate Education in Richmond, Virginia, for a three-day DW2.0 certification course. Become certified and have your name listed on Bill Inmon’s website.

You do not want to miss this class.

Comments from previous attendees:

“The world has needed a redefinition of data warehousing for a long time.”
“Definitely a great eye opener.”
“Some very interesting points were brought up that I hadn’t considered before.”

Click here for more information.

WHY DW2.0?
Data warehousing began in the mid 1980s. By 1990, the first book on data warehousing had been written and seminars were just beginning. Soon thereafter, data marts, operational data stores, descision support systems applications and a whole host of other extensions to the data warehouse began to appear.

At the same time, technology began to appear that made data warehousing commercially viable. There was the extension of DBMS to start to be able to handle very large volumes of data. There was a drop in disk storage prices. There was the advent of new forms of storage such as near line storage. There were the business intelligence vendors. In short, the world of data warehousing went from a theoretical possibility to a burgeoning reality in a few short years.

From a thought leadership perspective, something unusual began to happen. Consulting firms were building data warehouses that really weren’t data warehouses. Some vendors began to talk about real-time data warehouses and active data warehouses when no such thing existed as part of data warehousing. Some conferences that focused on data warehousing held many presentations on solutions that were not data warehousing. In those presentations, the concept of a data warehouse was changed from what a data warehouse really was to a form of data warehousing that was simply not valid. Yet, these non-data warehouse structures were called data warehouses. And, finally, even consultants issued reports that measured the size of data warehouses that included all sorts of databases that were not remotely data warehouses.

In a word, the thought leadership that once had been very clear surrounding data warehouses, turned very murky. People were using any old notion of data warehousing or something resembling data warehousing to sell their products and services - whether the notion was proper or not.

Into this sea of confusion comes DW2.0 - the architecture for the next generation of data warehousing.

Best Regards,

Bill Inmon

 Nothing new here….It seems to me that IBM is the right buyer for Cognos…Version 8, with its “built from the ground up” java/J2EE architecture is the right platform for IBM to add to its mix.

 An activity is simply a step in the process needed to transform inputs into outputs needed/and or desired by a customer. The challenge in ABC is to capture the various processes, determine what the activity mix for a various product or service is, and then assign relevant costs to them. This is a complex process, which we will explore this week.

No additional comment needed.

 An interesting article from Professor Simkin on using various Excel functions to prevent errors…Much of the top half of the article is pretty standard stuff (use of hash/control totals, limit tests, check calculations of key totals) but there is some neat stuff about using charts to find outlying data values, the use of signature forms (this should be standard procedure!) and especially the “Data Validation”, “Audit Formulas” and “Trace Precedents” features of Excel.

 No discussion of Spreadsheet errors is complete without discussing Dr Panko of the University of Hawaii. The great thing about his research is that he approaches spreadsheet development as being similar to the development of computer programs…which is exactly what they are!

Why should spreadsheets not be tested? Why should they not go through the same governance processes as any other computer program?