An aside - Pushing Intelligence into the Software

I digress from this discussion on the three factors needed - to touch on a topic that came to mind due to recent events at work.

The concept that I discovered was happening, or could happen, is that intelligence can be moved out of the database and into the software applications that are above.

Let me try and explain this a bit better.

In the surrounding applications there are many calculations done as a part of the routine operations of the organization. It is possible that application designers will refrain from storing interim results, or potentially final results, under the theory that they can always be recalculated by the application.

Saving database size may not be the issue, but releaving the database engine of the additional burden may be a deciding factor.

I must point out that I do not have direct evidence that this is happening, but it would not surprise me that application developers could be taking this approach, and might be within your organzation.

The danger from this condition is that interim results will not be immediately available to the data analyst to create the information from the data. Instead the interim results must be re-created. This is a task that may not be onerous, but does require additional resources and complications during the data analysis steps.

A second concern is that the calculations are being done twice, in two different environments, and there is a possibility of differences in results occurring.

"But that can't happen", you say. The computer will always get the same answer.

That is what I thought too, until I discovered that scientific and accounting rules for rounding are differet.

The scientific (and correct) approach is to complete all calculations and round to the desired accuracy at the end.

The accounting approach is to round to the nearest cent (two decimals) after each calculation.

These two rules can produce differences.

When dealing with auditors this can be a problem.

Data Rich, Information Rich

How did we get here?

What does it take?

Can we sustain it?

Can it be duplicated in other organizations?

Of all the above questions the one that is probably most important to you is the last. Can you learn from what we have? Can you turn your organization into a data rich, information rich environment as well.

I believe the short answer is yes! And it will take three things to get there.

1) The personnel
2) The software
3) The access

These are ranked in order of difficulty to obtain, with the easiest one first.

What personnel do you need to create an information rich environment?

The reason this particular requirement is so easy to fulfill, is that the person you need is probably already in your organization.

Chances are, if you organization has more than a few thousand employees, then there is probably someone, somewhere in your organization with all the request skills and desire to complete the task. He or she is probably buried deep in your organization, but just waiting for the opportunity to work with their skills, and reveal their magic.

If you start looking for such a person there is a good chance they will NOT be in the IT department. If you want to find them, begin your search by asking around many departments.

What you will be looking for is the person who is the most frequent "go to" person for data analysis or just answering questions that have never been asked before. That person probably exists. Look around far enough, and long enough, and that person will probably emerge as a common name when asking for something new.

That is your person.

If anyone can lead your organization into a data rich, information rich world, this person will be a key player. All they need is a bit of encouragement, the opportunity to do it, and most importantly the other two key ingredients,

software and access.

So far I have described the situation in many organizations.

To a large extent the previous posts include insights into how this situation came to be, what drove its' creation, and more importantly the conditions that continue to foster its' existence.

Organizations are growing ever larger, the systems required to support this expansion become even larger. Millions of dollars are spent each year by many organizations to perpetuate this condition and manage to expand somehow.

But under it all is a growing chasm of data rich, information poor.

My organization is no different, for the most part we are DRIP, just like everyone else.

BUT.....

Within my own paticular area, we are data rich, information rich, very rich.

How did we get there? Can we maintain it?

Stay tuned.