http://www.joelvanderweele.com Making CPM, Business Intelligence, Scorecarding, and Business Planning actually work. Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:20:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en   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 http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/02/04/how-to-save-your-next-cpm-project/ http://communities.cognos.com/home 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 ... http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/30/kudos-to-cognos/ A needed project if there every was one! 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!   http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/28/ykuds-ep-cookbook/    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 ... http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/28/a-note-from-bill-inmon/ http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Business-Intelligence/Cognos-Rob-Ashe-Working-Under-the-IBM-Umbrella/  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. http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/28/rob-ashe-on-the-ibm-acquistion-of-cognos/ http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071112_678294.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5 http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/28/interesting-discussion-of-the-recent-bicpm-software-consolidationspecifically-cognos/ Activity based costing (ABC) and Activity Based Management (ABM) are key tools for any organization struggling to understand the costs of doing business. ABC focuses on assigning costs based on "Activities". Each product and/or service sold by an organization has its own unique mix of activities.  An activity is simply a ... http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/28/the-2nd-theme-week-for-2008-activity-based-costing-activity-based-management/ http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/Mypapers/Rant-on-science-in-SS-BPs.pdf   No additional comment needed. http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/25/spreadsheet-errors-read-this-one-4-page-document-from-dr-panko/ http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/feb2004/simkin.htm  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, ... http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/24/using-excels-internal-audit-features-to-prevent-spreadsheet-errors/ http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/index.htm  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 ... http://www.joelvanderweele.com/2008/01/24/ray-pankos-spreadsheet-research/