James Taylor, one of the IT analyst thought leaders of the broadening scope of business intelligence, has written a thoughtful piece titled Analytics simplify data to amplify its value. In his article James states that he likes his article’s title as a succinct description of analytics. He states:
(Simplifying data to amplify its value) always struck me as going to the core of analytics – the power of analytics to turn huge volumes of data into a much smaller amount of information and insight. … In every case the analytics are simplifying the data (a picture, a graph, an equation not thousands of rows of data) and yet amplifying its value by showing a data consumer what the data means. … IT people need to educate themselves on the role of these different kinds of analytics and their potential. …Your systems store and manage data so something that makes that data more valuable makes your systems more valuable.
There is some danger when people talk about the keep-it-simple-stupid KISS rule. They forget its corollary LOVE rule – leave-out-virtually-everything. Too simple may be insufficient to draw correct conclusions. James understands this balance, and he has been an advocate of good decision making regardless of all the buzzwords the IT community may use.
Many organizations are drowning in data but often starving for information. I’m with James. Performance management methodologies embedded with analytics of all flavors unleashes the potential power for good decisions buried in data from transactional systems.
